The Lily War
by Worldbringer of Joseun
Summary: Gilgamesh didn't know why he pulled out a cart filled with a potion of youth. He just knew that clairvoyance told him to do so. The missile that caused the cart to explode, flinging its contents across the city did not care for the reason, only that it managed to spread the potion of youth across all eight Servants.
1. Chapter 1

**If you expect this to be serious, …**

**Go read something else.**

The Lily War

Gilgamesh frowned as his clairvoyance materials inside the Gate of Babylon told him to use his Noble Phantasm and how to do so.

"This is most definitely foolish," he grumbled as he pulled out a cart of potion of youth from his treasury. "I am the greatest king. Why would I need to display my collection of potion of youth when I already know-"

Whatever Gilgamesh might have finished saying, we will never know.

Why? Let's go to another scene.

* * *

Archer froze on the roof of the Tohsaka mansion as he watched Gilgamesh, the King of Heroes out for a stroll. Completely undefended when the Grail War would soon be starting.

He couldn't believe his luck. Should he take this opportunity?

His younger self had encountered Lancer and himself this night already and he and his Master had retreated to home. He probably should mention Lancer not giving up to Rin yet, but…

This was a once-in-a-lifetime, no, a once-in-several-lifetimes chance to get rid of Gilgamesh early.

Archer summoned his bow. He brought out a fast moving and powerful Noble Phantasm.

He turned it into an arrow.

He nocked it, aimed, and let his refined senses tell him if he would hit.

He couldn't believe it.

He aimed again, just to double check.

He would hit. His refined kyuudou, clairvoyance, and Eye of the Mind senses and skills all agreed that he would inevitably hit with no possibility of missing.

No sense in wasting a golden opportunity.

Emiya released the arrow.

And gaped in disbelief as Gilgamesh brought out of his treasury, at the exact moment he released the arrow, a cart of all things.

Not a shield, not armor, but a cart.

Right in the path of his arrow.

But Emiya's aim was true.

The arrow blew through the cart, causing the vials inside to go flying high into the sky.

And some to land and then break on the now dying King of Heroes.

Archer grumbled as he watched the almost dead Archer heal and shrink.

Of course Gilgamesh had good luck, A rank if Archer knew his opponent's parameters correctly. Naturally, the King of Heroes would manage to take a certain hit and kill shot and manage to survive.

And if Archer was seeing correctly, the King of Heroes was getting younger.

Then Archer's Eye of the Mind skill started laughing at him. In Alaya's voice.

"Well, this will be fantastic," Archer grumbled as he looked around himself for whatever would cause the will of humanity to laugh at him.

Nothing to his right. Nothing to his left. Nothing in front of him. Nothing behind him. Nothing beneath him in any direction.

Archer did a spin around, examining all directions for whatever caused his skill to predict the future to start laughing. At him.

Nothing.

And then he looked up.

Just in time for a large splat of liquid to land on his face and in his nose and mouth.

And Archer cursed the world as he felt his Spirit Origin start to change.

* * *

Meanwhile, in a house where a boy had just tried to survive an attack by Lancer, two Servants fought an opening spar.

Saber blocked the spear strikes expertly, her lifetime of training in swordsmanship giving her skill.

And then her A rank Instinct told her to lift her sword and block a projectile.

She immediately did so, wondering if an Archer had decided to join in.

Both her and Lancer momentarily paused as her sword shattered a pair of glass vials.

Some of the liquid in the vials bounced off Arturia's wall of wind surrounding her Excalibur back at her as she inhaled in surprise from having a glass vial like one of Merlin's potions break on her sword. Some of it continued onto her opponent, whose mouth was open in a wide grin.

Cu Chulainn discovered that Protection from Arrows did not translate into protection from liquids. Which he already knew from all the time he had spent in the rain. Made for some miserable battles because he was soaked wet.

And their fight ended as both Servants started shuddering as their bodies changed along with their Spirit Origin and Noble Phantasms. Not quite so much as shrank when compared to the other Servants since they hadn't changed much since their Lily forms but changed none the less.

Their Magic Resistance did not work on one of the supreme forms of healing magic, the potion of youth.

* * *

Caster was working on a spell under moonlight, confident that her protections would keep her safe and undisturbed.

She was right.

And she was wrong.

She finished the last of her Divine Words and sighed as she looked over the protective charm she had laid on the object she was going to give to her beloved Master.

"Master Souichirou," she sighed, her new love occupying her heart.

She probably should have paid more attention to the air around her.

Because there was no malice and the thing could not kill or harm, but instead healed and restored, her defenses did not work against the flying vial.

However, the vial's cork did decide at that very moment to come out, spilling its precious contents onto a witch.

Medea's magical senses alerted her to it.

She opened her mouth to utter a word to teleport her to safety.

Only for the liquid to splatter into her mouth, bounce off the back of her throat, and down her windpipe.

And Caster's Spirit Core started to change.

* * *

Assasssin was just standing at the gate. Waiting watching.

Good thing he was so good at it. You couldn't cut down a sparrow mid-flight unless there was a sparrow near you. And most sparrows did not let a person run to them.

You had to wait for them to get close to you. Patiently wait.

Assassin did not mind.

He just wished that someone would show up and allow him to test his skills. A lifetime of training and practice only for him to finally achieve his goal-

-and discover that he was too old to test his swordsmanship against any fighter.

But he learned meditation.

And to sense when something was coming his way.

So Sasaki Kojirou struck the vial out of the air while it was still falling towards him.

But the potion itself was the Noble Phantasm, not the vial.

So the vial shattered, splattering Sasaki Kojirou with its contents.

The man blinked, his closed mouth frowning.

Then he sent a finger towards one of the splatters of liquid on his clothes. He brought the liquid to his nose where he sniffed it.

'Hmm, smells like tea.' He thought.

Then he licked the drop and tasted it.

"Tastes like herbal tea," he mused. "But I've never had this flavor before."

Then he started to change.

* * *

Berserker was the same faithful and loyal Servant he always was. Still was insane but he was Heracles, the greatest of all warriors and Berserkers.

And while his Master walked along the streets of the city, the giant stood guard over her, following her in his Astral form.

And then his senses detected something flying through the air. Some small thing, at an unlethal speed.

But it was falling towards his Master. And it might hurt her, make her suffer pain from a bump on her head.

So being the protective giant he was, he immediately materialized and smacked the item out of the air, breaking it into so many fragments and drops.

"Berserker!" Illya cried out in shock as she felt the demand to support her Servant sharply increase as he took on a more physical form.

In order to respond, the giant breathed in in preparation for his usual reassuring growl.

And found that there were some drops that had been splattered onto his lips.

And a Servant like Berserker, who could easily bellow to be heard for kilometers around, had a strong inbreath.

And so, the mad giant breathed in Gilgamesh's potion of youth.

And immediately began to shrink.

* * *

Rider was escorting her Master on another expedition to find someone to feed to her. To give her more power until they could finish the Bounded Field at the school.

"Where is everyone?" Shinji Matou demanded petulantly to the air.

Rider could understand. Tonight was suspiciously empty of everyone. No one was out. Her ears couldn't hear any sounds from anyone outside. All the sounds she could hear had the muffled timbre that comes from speaking from inside a closed structure.

"Well, why aren't you finding anyone!" Shinji demanded as he wheeled on Rider. "Do you want me to lose! You're too weak to win without eating so get out there and find someone to eat!"

"Master, there-"

Unfortunately, Rider was wearing her blindfold and couldn't see what was falling through the sky towards her at that moment. And while she was speaking, she couldn't hear the quiet sound of the liquid falling through the sky.

In other words, her D rank Luck wasn't up to resisting the fate of the potion of youth falling into her mouth.

As Medusa unintentionally swallowed the potion of youth, her Spirit Origin changed.

And an unexpected result happened to Shinji's Book of False Attendants as the Spirit Origin of the Servant it bound, changed.

* * *

"Well, this has got to be better than being adult me," Gilgamesh Lily said as he examined the upturned cart of potion of youth.

Then he looked down at himself, at his black and white casual suit.

"I think my style could be better," he said before he opened up the Gate of Babylon and stuck his head in to rummage for better clothes. "Now where is my wardrobe? And how badly did older me mess it up this time?"

* * *

"Huh," Servant Archer Lily, otherwise known as a high school student Shirou Emiya, said as he looked down at his body. "Never figured I would be on this side of the Grail War."

"_Archer!_" Rin, his Master, demanded across their Master-Servant link. "_What happened! I felt something happen to you!_"

"_Well, funny you should mention that,_" Archer Lily said across the same link. "_I think I just sniped an enemy Servant only to get caught in the oddest counterattack ever._"

Silence.

"_Who are you?_" Rin's voice, cold in suspicion, demanded of her Servant. "_And what happened to my Servant!?_"

"_It's me,_ _Archer,_" Archer Lily replied. He couldn't go by Shirou. He just saw his alternate self earlier today in school. "_You may want to be sitting for this because I don't think you'll believe what I'm going to tell you._"

* * *

Saber Lily blinked at the golden sword in her hand and the white dress and armor she was wearing.

"Merlin!" she yelled.

"Wait," she tilted her head cutely. "Why am I screaming out 'Merlin'?"

Then she pounded her free hand onto the back of her other hand in realization.

"Oh yeah. Because he is always the one responsible for anything weird like this," she remembered.

* * *

"Oi," Lancer Lily, the form of Cu Chulainn who had just finished training with Scathach, demanded. "Are we gonna finish our spar or not? My evil Master set limits on how much I can fight so I wanta fight as much as I can."

"Oh. Oh, sorry!" Saber Lily apologized as she finished her reminiscence on how much trouble Merlin had gotten her into. "I guess I got carried away with this development and forgot all about it."

"It's cool," Lancer Lily winked at the girl, who blushed. "This is sorta a surprise to us both, but I really want to have a good fight before I need ta retreat."

"Oh, yes," Saber Lily said as she got her blush under control. "My name is Ar- Wait! I'm supposed to keep that secret. Um, I am Saber Lily! And you are?"

"Lancer, Lancer Lily now," Lancer Lily said as he got into position to charge. "I look forward ta a good match."

"_Lancer,_" Lancer's newer master ordered across the Master Servant bond. "_Retreat._"

"Ya can't be serious!" Lancer protested as he started to stand up. "I just got a good fight and you're bringing me back already!"

"_Lancer, I will use a Command Seal if I have to,_" Kirei ordered across the bond.

"Fine, fine, stingy loser who wouldn't know a good brawl if it bit him on the arse," Lancer Lily grumbled as he turned around. "Catch ya later, Saber!"

"Ah, you too!" Saber Lily waved her now visible sword in a goodbye towards Lancer Lily. "Good-bye!"

But as Lancer bounded away, he could hear the girlish squeal as Saber Lily got a good look at her new Master.

"He's so cute! Wait, please forget I said that! Ooh, this is so embarrassing!"

Lancer Lily barked out a laugh.

Sounded like Saber would be fun to be around for this Grail War.

* * *

"Caster?" a serious adult male voice called out into the cold. "I was under the impression that this would be over by this hour. Was that incorrect?"

Kuzuki Souichirou stepped out into the courtyard and paused as he noticed that there was no woman in a dark cloak out here.

Instead there was a teenage girl, in a light and medium blue gossamer dress and a staff in her hand.

"Oh, Master!" she cried out, getting up and rushing towards him. "I'm sorry, but I think I swallowed a potion of youth!"

She suddenly stopped and tilted her head. "But that is really odd because potions of youth are really, really rare. Why would one be out here and flying through the air like that?"

"I do not understand this magus business," Kuzuki reminded the girl, who looked like a younger version of his lover. She looked much younger, like she hadn't finished puberty. "But what is the effects of this and is it reversible?"

"Um," the teenager tilted her head into a thinking pose.

Cute, was Kuzuki's first impression.

"I don't think sooo? It might be possible to grow back to my original age, but not in a timeframe of a Grail War." Caster Lily said tentatively before clapping her hands together. "Oh, and the effects are that I am a younger version of myself, with weaker skills, I can't really do offensive magecraft, but I'm still really, really good at healing magecraft. And my Noble Phantasm is Pain Breaker instead of Rule Breaker. It's really, really good at healing and can heal everything but death!"

"Oh," Caster suddenly gasped, covering her mouth as she realized something. "And I have to break up with you, Master."

The girl bowed.

"I'm sorry, and I think you are a really great man, but I am in love with Jason so I can't return your feelings," she said formally.

"Alright," Kuzuki nodded as he appeared to calmly accept their break-up. "It is illegal for a teacher to be in a romantic relationship with a child."

"But don't worry, Master!" Caster popped up brightly. "I'm going to use my new skill, Romance of the Sea Foam, to find you a good romance!"

Kuzuki blinked.

This wasn't what he was expecting…

"Let's see, to do that, I need to examine your relationships with the women you interact with regularly," Caster Lily mused as she started to walk around, thinking about how she was going to find her favorite Master a good woman. "Ah, I need to meet your fellow teachers!"

She wheeled around on her Master, pleading with adorable puppy dog eyes. "Can I go to school, pleeeaaase?"

* * *

The former Assassin looked down at himself as he realized he was a lot younger.

"Hmm," he mused before shrugging. "Guess I should practice my swallow cutting technique some more."

So the second Saber Lily drew his sword and started swinging, practicing how to swing a sword so that a swallow could not escape.

He was going to follow his teacher's teachings. He was going to become a swordsman.

And he was going to figure out how to cut down a swallow mid-flight!

* * *

Berserker was no longer big.

Well, that is wrong. He was still big, but he was no longer a giant.

Instead he was a young man, a big and huge man.

And he is not a Berserker anymore, having been taken back to an age before his berserk rampage that caused him to undergo his Twelve Labors.

Instead, he was now a Rider. With 12 Noble Phantasms, each one relating to one of the 12 Labors.

"Wow," Illya said, as she looked over Rider Heracles's stats. "12 Noble Phantasms. The Nemean Lion, Lernaean Hydra, the Golden Hind, Erymanthian Boar, the Augean Stables, the Stymphalian Birds, the Cretan Bull, the Mares of Diomedes, the Girdle of Hippolyta, Geryon's cattle, the Golden Apples of the Hesperides, and the Cerebus of Hades."

She looked up at Heracles who smugly smiled.

"And you can summon all of them!" she squealed. "Which one should we use first? I want to see the cerebus!"

"All right, little Master," Heracles Lily chuckled as he flexed his muscles under his Master's admiring gaze before extending his palm down to the level of her knees. "But I don't think this street is big enough for it. Climb up and I'll take you to a place where you can see it."

"All right!" Illya cheered as she jumped onto the hand which brought her up to his shoulder, where climbed on, settling in for Berserker travel. "Let's go!"

"As you wish, little Master," Rider Lily chuckled before using his A level agility to run off towards the forest.

Within a minute, the duo was safely hidden among the trees.

"Cerebus, Cerebus, Cerebus," Illya was cheering enthusiastically on the tree branch that Heracles had dropped her onto.

"And here you go!" Heracles roared "**The Twelfth Labor, Capturing the Cerebus!**"

Illya cheered again as a massive, black furred, three-headed dog appeared in the clearing before her.

And then screamed as it lunged at Heracles, all three heads snarling.

"A feisty fellow isn't he!" Heracles yelled as he started to wrestle the giant dog. "Give me an hour and I'll have him under control!"

"What!" Illya yelled as she started to read the details for Heracles's new Noble Phantasms.

"Oh," she said as she read the fine print. "That… actually makes sense."

_Heracles Lily has yet to undergo the 12 Labors. The task to accomplish each labor must be accomplished before the Noble Phantasm will obey the Servant or before Heracles Lily will be able to use the product of such a battle. Each of the 12 Labors can be carried out in the modern day but requires the approval of the Master before each can be started. The Master takes on the role of Eurystheus but can only choose the 12 Labors as worthy feats for Heracles Lily._

"So he has _doing_ 12 Labors as his Noble Phantasm," Illya sighed before brightening up. "Then that means that I can watch him do each! And he has to bring the rewards to me! Go Berserker! I mean, go Rider!"

"Thank you Master!" Heracles yelled as he punched one head of the dog into a nearby tree, causing the old and wide tree to topple over.

"Too bad, he lost Godhand," Illya commented as she swung her legs while sitting on the tree branch, watching the fight unfold in front of her.

* * *

The former Rider Servant petrified Shinji with her eyes as he had started screaming at her younger form and was annoying her.

"As my older sisters would say, 'Who let the howler monkey in? Go chase it away!'" Medusa Lily said whirling her scythe.

Medusa Lily, like Heracles, had also experienced a class change. Into Lancer.

And she was now a young girl, the same apparent age, weight and size as her older sisters.

"At least I am cute now," the young goddess said as she twisted and turned, examining herself next to the stone statue of her annoying former temporary Master. "I would hate to still be ugly like my older self."

The girl finished her examination of her armored dress and nodded.

"Alright, time to return to my Master," the girl decided, vanishing Harpe and jumping off into the night sky, following the trail of her mana source back to Sakura Matou.

The remnants of the Book of False Attendants laid petrified in the now stone Shinji's pocket. The book had been binding on Rider Medusa, but not Lancer Medusa Lily.


	2. Chapter 2: Rin is a Pervert

**Telekinetic's Sword is fighting me so I'm releasing a chapter of this instead.**

**Chapter 2: Rin is a Pervert "Am Not!" "Are too!" "Am not!"**

Rin stopped and stared as she took in the look of the new Servant.

A quick check along her link to her Servant confirmed it.

Who would have ever expected the school brownie to become a Heroic Spirit?

"Shirou Emiya?" She asked in startlement.

At Archer's nod, Rin dropped back onto the couch.

"I'm going to need to sit here for a bit," she declared, mind reeling with shock over Sakura's (and maybe her own teeny tiny) crush being her Servant. "Go do something useful like fix the house."

"All right," the red-head said calmly before astralizing. "_I'll make a snack for you as well. If you're going to have an early morning, you should have a good meal to start it off with._"

As he left, Rin's frantic thoughts started to sort themselves.

And first to come to mind was-

"_Archer,_" Rin asked through the link as he moved through her door. "_Why didn't you tell me that you were Shirou Emiya?_"

Her voice was deceptively calm.

"_Because it would have interfered in my older self's plans,_" Archer Lily replied. "_But now that it painfully obvious who I am, it makes no sense to keep it secret. Also, I don't have the same goal he did. I like being a Hero of Justice. He can't stand it anymore. For a stupid reason, to tell the truth, but what else would you expect of him? However, he was serious in serving you._"

"_You mean, you were going to fight without telling me you knew who you were?_" Rin asked with false honey in her mental voice.

"_He was going to give you the victory and survival,_" he said defensively. "_And he never lied to you. You summoned a multi-century old Counter Guardian version of myself. He had genuinely started to forget his original life, completely forgetting life from before the Fuyuki Fire. And most of his mortal life too._"

"_The Fuyuki Fire? Wait, THE FUYUKI FIRE! You're a survivor of that!_" Rin bolted up straight as that fact penetrated her mind.

"_Yes, my father saved me from those flames,_" Archer Lily calmly told her, like how he would tell her that it was dark out at night rather than what had to have been a traumatic experience. "_He also accidentally set me on the course to fight in this, the Fifth Grail War. I still have some confused and conflicting memories about this War and from what I remember, those memories are now out-dated but I can tell you this, you have a very good chance of winning now." _

Rin smugly smiled. She might have wanted Saber but a Servant who knew what the war would have was almost worth his weight in gemstones.

_"Unfortunately," _Archer continued, his voice becoming somber. _"All my memories agree on this. There are some things you need to know before you start celebrating._"

"_What are they?_" Rin asked trying to figure out how to use a Servant who had probably won the Fifth War.

"_First, you will want to eat,_" Archer said, the change in topic causing Rin's eyebrow to twitch. "_You don't want to learn these things on an empty stomach. You might also want to take the next day off in order to allow yourself time to adjust._"

"_I am a full fledged magus_," Rin said confidently. "_I can handle whatever you throw at me._"

"_Even if it included the murderer of your father? About what really happened to Sakura?_" Archer asked, the questions penetrating through Rin's confidence like arrows through cloth. "_And the truth about the Holy Grail?_"

Rin froze.

The murderer of her father? How would Archer know about that!? Did he kill him?!

No, of course not, Rin scolded herself. Shirou Emiya would have only been around her age at the time. No way a child could have killed her father inside his own study.

But what was that about Sakura? What really happened? What didn't she know about her own sister?

And what was the truth about the Holy Grail? Was part of what she had been told a lie? Who had lied to her?

"_You're going to have explain things to me, Archer,_" Rin said clearly over the link after she got control of her confusion and emotions again.

"_In a bit,_" her Archer said from her kitchen. "_You're going to want to eat first and be ready. I'll tell you all I know to be true after you finish breakfast._"

Rin ground her teeth but let him continue.

She really wanted to know. No, she needed to know. After Archer told her the three things that most mattered to her, she had to know.

But apparently Archer thought she would experience shock from what he was going to tell her.

She could wait. No, she would wait.

And if Archer didn't live up to her expectations and instead told her some mundane stuff that didn't shock her, she was going to command seal him into a punishment so dire that his Heroic Spirit self would never forget it.

But first, she could try to piece together ideas.

Something about the murderer of her father. What she had been told had happened to Sakura wasn't true. And the Grail had a secret.

They could be related. Or they could be unrelated.

But it would be something that Archer, True Name Shirou Emiya, would know but she wouldn't.

Wait, she knows his True Name. She could actually find out what his Noble Phantasm and skills were now!

Rin hurriedly used her connection to the Grail to get a look at Archer's information.

There it was.

Class: Archer Lily

True Name: Shirou Emiya

Master: Rin Tohsaka.

Blah, blah… Different and slightly weaker stats with a higher Luck parameter and -

EX RANK NOBLE PHANTASM!

Rin felt her mind be blown into the stratosphere.

EX rank meant it was out of comparison. Somehow, Shirou Emiya's Noble Phantasm wasn't only not unknown anymore but instead was a Noble Phantasm so powerful that it couldn't even be compared to other Noble Phantasms.

How did a modern person acquire an EX rank Noble Phantasm?!

Rin scrolled through the information, eager to see what could be his Noble Phantasm.

Class Skills: Magic Resistance: D

Independent Action: B

Clairvoyance: C

Eroge Protagonist: C

Magecraft: D-

Noble Phantasms:

Wait. What was that?

Rin backtracked to Archer's skills.

Magecraft D-! Emiya was a magus! On her land, without even telling her?

Rin gripped her skirt vowing to go and …'talk' with Shirou Emiya about not letting her know about him studying magecraft in her city.

But how much did he know? How skilled was he? He was on the Throne of Heroes so he had to be impressive in some way. Yet he had been summoned as Archer rather than Caster. D- could mean that he was decent or that he was poor at magecraft. She would have to-

Rin's attention suddenly fell onto his newest and fourth skill.

Eroge Protagonist.

Rin narrowed her eyes at the skill sitting innocuously among the others.

Hidden among Archer's skills, this skill was …dangerous.

Was Shirou Emiya a player? A seducer? A lady's man?

Was he playing with Sakura' heart (and her own)?

If so, he was going to regret it.

But first, Rin found herself hesitating as she raised a finger to have the system explain more about his skill, she needed to know what it meant. And how it affected him. Maybe also how good of a lay he would be-

Rin's awareness sharpened as she caught onto the direction in which her thoughts were changing. Was that a product of his skill?

She needed to know. Certainly before she did anything like take him into her bed or anything like that.

Eroge Protagonist: C

_This skill represents a person with a high compatibility in aspects of love._ She read._ Shirou Emiya could fall in love with many different girls, some human, some magus, some Servants. In some instances, he could even end up either with a harem or him being in one. At rank C, Eroge Protagonist allows him three simultaneous loves with three different women and increases the chance of partners being willing to share with one another and form into a polyamory relationship. A bit of warning, this skill combines a degree of romantic density too._

Rin leaned back into the cushions, her mind working furiously.

Three separate loves.

Was she one of them? And who were his other women? Were they pretty?

Wait, no, that wasn't what was important!

How was this skill going to help her win the Grail War?

So the man had high compatibility in love, big deal.

Rin ignored the blush on her face.

So what if he could potentially act as a stalking horse for her to bring in some beautiful women for 'tantric ritual experiments'. She wasn't interested!

Not too much.

Not that much.

Not enough to think about it.

Only enough for her to think a little about it.

She was only barely interested.

More curious than anything.

How would this skill work?

And she wouldn't be dreaming about it. Not at all.

By the time Archer Lily finished breakfast, Rin had forgotten to go and see what Shirou Emiya's two Noble Phantasms were, her thoughts focused on how she could end up with the result of either her Servant or the living boy or both being in her harem rather than her being in his.

And if anyone ever found out about Rin had been thinking about the whole time, she would have blamed hormones and the stupid skill faster than they could have opened their mouth.

* * *

"-and that was what your Azoth Dagger's history is." Shirou Lily finished the first of his reveals.

Rin was staring in horror at the inherited Mystic Code now laying on the table in front of her.

This, this-

This was outrageous! She had been carrying the very weapon that murdered her father with her for years!

And it had been given to her by her guardian, her father's apprentice.

The man who had killed him!

The one who claimed to search for the murderer but that it might be difficult since it happened in a Grail War.

Hogwash!

He knew all along! He was the very murderer he lied about searching for!

Rin felt her anger stoke, her rage flare up in her chest.

She was going to kill him!

Supervisor or not, she was going to kill him if it was the last thing she did!

No, she wasn't going to kill him.

She was going to make. Him. Suffer.

Suffer like he had never suffered before. Suffer until he wished that she would give him the same death he had given her father.

While Rin dwelt on her anger, fuming and laying malicious plans for the priest of Fuyuki, a knock sounded from the front door.

"Go see who it is," Rin ordered her Servant. She was busy. Too busy to answer a door-to-door salesman. She needed to have a plan for how to best get revenge.

She was going to be emancipated. One way or another.

Coincidentally, Rin forgot that it was past midnight and that salesmen, or anyone else for that matter, did not go around knocking on doors at that hour.

Archer Lily nodded and left, heading towards the door.

Leaving Rin to start pacing, putting together some of her nastier curses into an experimental spell that she would need a test subject for.

Hmmm, wonder who that test subject could be…

"Rin!" Shirou Lily's voice called out in obvious amusement from the front door. "It's for you!"

"I'm busy!" She called back.

"You're going to want to see this," the mirth was audible in her Servant's voice. "It's about Kotomine!"

Rin paused even as two distant voices laughed.

About Kotomine? Was someone going to help her get her hands on the soon-to-be-suffering priest?

Rin decided that for a potential alliance like that, she could answer the door herself.

Marching across the room, Rin took a second to straighten her appearance. No sense in looking disreputable.

Finally arriving at the front door, Rin stopped and waited for Archer Lily to move aside so she could see.

And blinked at what she saw.

Before she smiled. A very, very, very malicious and delighted smile.

* * *

"Hello," Gilgamesh Lily said to the Faker who answered the door. "Is Rin in? I've got someone for her that she might appreciate. She is the Second Owner of this town, right?"

"Yes," the second Archer replied as he looked in interest at the man tied up and hanging from the chains that were behind Gilgamesh Lily. "She is. And I think she was about to start looking for him."

The older man turned around and yelled into the house. "Rin! It's for you!"

"I'm busy!" the answering voice came back.

"You're going to want to see this. It's about Kotomine!" the fifth war's Archer replied.

Both Servants could easily hear the pause in her footsteps before she started walking toward them.

"We were just talking about him," Shirou Lily said conversationally, turning back to Gilgamesh. "I think it was along the lines of 'how badly he messed up'."

Gilgamesh and Shirou chuckled.

"Yeah," Gilgamesh Lily said. "I mean, he's a bad guy. I don't know why my older self thought it would be funny to be around him. I mean, he's repulsive, not entertaining. And what he did-"

Gilgamesh shook his head in displeasure.

Shirou Lily nodded in agreement.

"I know," he sympathized. "He went completely out of control and decided to stop improving himself. To just wallow in being evil. Once that happens, you have to lock him up. He can't be cured until he wants to stop being evil."

"Or kill them," Gilgamesh shrugged. Back in his day, they didn't have prisons.

As the Archers finished talking, Rin finally arrived and tapped her feet, waiting for the Archer inside the house to move aside.

Which he did, revealing the captured man to them.

Rin's eyes went wide in surprised delight at the sight of Kotomine chained up and gagged to keep his tongue from wagging.

Then she smiled.

A malicious, evil smile that reminded Gilgamesh of some of the goddesses he had seen back in his day.

"Why, hello there, Kotomine," Rin purred. "I was just about to go looking for you. There is a new lead on the case of 'who murdered my father' that I wanted to talk to you about."

Gilgamesh Lily stepped back from the mortal who was reminding him of an angry Ishtar right now who was about to 'play' with you.

Opposite him, Archer Lily was also stepping back.

Hell hath no fury as that of a woman scorned.

But some things are even deeper and worse than hell.

"I had other business with the Second Owner. Permission to do some cleaning up since this is her territory and also to tell her something," Gilgamesh Lily slowly said, warily eying the Master who was slowly stalking towards Kotomine like a cat savoring its prey's fear. Except the priest was a master of controlling himself and had no fear to be seen. "But I can wait until tomorrow."

"Yes, I think that will be for the best," Shirou Lily said as he also stepped away from Rin, eying her like any sane man would eye a hissing cobra. "She might be busy for a while."

"And I had some new experiments that I needed a victim—I mean, _a willing volunteer_ for." Rin continued as she moved towards the captured priest, hands opening and closing repetitively.

Gilgamesh was just glad that he hadn't used Enkidu for capturing his former Master. He didn't think he would get his chains back if he had.

She really did look just like Ishtar.

* * *

We now take a pause in our showing of Rin's reactions to the Fifth Grail War's secrets. Please be aware that in Rin's delight of her new experiments and subject, the material has exceeded the rating that may be shown.

See you again next chapter.

* * *

**A.N. Psss. Can you guys figure out what didn't happen in the last two chapters?**

* * *

Lancer scratched his head as he stared at the empty church.

"So, uh, what am I supposed to do now?" he wondered.

His Master was gone after a brief communication of _Lancer-!_

Which was funny as it sounded like he had been attacked or something.

Only the church was completely intact but he didn't feel a connection to his Master anymore.

"Welp," he shrugged and turned around, materializing his spear even as he laid it against his shoulder. "No helping it. Guess I'll need to find a third Master. Man, this Grail War is sure hard on them. Maybe I should actually stick near them so that they don't get offed so often while I'm away."

The Irish Servant stopped to consider it.

"Nah," he decided. "Escorting jobs suck from what I hear."

Emerging from the church door, the currently Master-less Servant stopped to look over the town, wondering if there was someone who could be his Master.

Not Caster, being led by a woman like her didn't sit right with his gut. Not the little homunculus girl, she probably had her mana full with Berserker.

But Berserker would be an awesome fight…

No, fight later, get a Master now so you can fight later.

The red-head was interesting but he didn't think the Saber Servant would appreciate sharing her Master. And Rider's Master was too weak to provide enough mana for a good fight. Archer's Master could probably be fun.

But then again, nobody took two Servants in.

Was there another person who could be his Master?

Cu Chulainn shrugged.

"Better just wander around and see if I get lucky," he decided and astralized to conserve mana.

At least he had greater amounts of Mana, Strength, and Agility.

And also Luck! It went up an entire rank! Practically doubled!

Hey, there was some movement over there!

Maybe he would be lucky!


	3. Chapter 3: Demi-God, Hero, and Goddess

**Chapter 3: A Demi-God, a Hero and a Goddess enter a Mansion…**

The sun was shining just above the horizon, the birds were chirping, and the air was nice and brisk.

A perfectly good day for being outside.

Naturally, despite the good weather, the only one awake at Rin's house was the guy who didn't need to sleep.

Shirou Lily quietly wrapped some electrical tape around some wiring.

If he woke Rin up…

Well, the chances of joining Kirei in his 'voluntary participation' in Rin's 'experiments' rose drastically. But unlike the priest, Shirou wasn't a masochist so he'd just suffer as Rin tried to find a way around their pain tolerances.

As for why he was fixing the Tohsaka home up, Shirou hated doing nothing. He couldn't just sit in place and wait for no reason. And as a Servant, exercise or training wouldn't do anything. He could do some sleeping, but…

To say it bluntly, Rin's mansion was old and some things were in need of repair in places and Rin was too cheapskate to hire people to do them until they started falling apart.

Put a guy who didn't like being idle and had home-repair skills into such a place and give him several hours as his Master slept, and let nature take its role.

Besides, Archer Lily could always do the sleeping later in the war when Rin's energy was exhausted from the hard battles ahead.

As Shirou cut the tape, he heard the doorbell ring.

Shirou put down the tools and headed to the door.

_Who would show up here?_ Shirou wondered. _Anyone who knew Rin would know that she isn't a morning person and anyone who didn't know Rin wouldn't come._

As the doorbell rang again, Archer pulled the door open.

Outside was a golden-haired boy in brown shorts and a white coat over a purple shirt.

"Hello," Gilgamesh Lily said smilingly. "Beautiful day for doing some early spring cleaning. I hope your Master is in a better mood?"

"We're not even out of winter yet, so just call it late winter cleaning," Archer Lily pointed out as he stepped out, closing the door behind him. "Also, she's asleep. Won't be up for a couple more hours. Sunday, you know."

"Sleeping in? On a day like this?" Gilgamesh gestured to the beautiful weather before clucking his tongue and shaking his head. "Teenagers."

"Not sure if I am supposed to say anything, being a teen right now and all," Shirou Lily replied. "I think it might just be a certain Master staying up past 3."

"Ah, burning the midnight oil," Gilgamesh nodded. "Should have guessed. Magi seem to love the nighttime rather than doing work during the day. But then again, they don't really want to comply with the natural way of things."

"It would prevent them from doing experiments through magecraft at midnight," Shirou agreed. "Almost as if they were doing experiments against nature."

"So what brings you out here?" Shirou asked, getting around to what he was curious about.

"Well, I had hoped to drop in on the Second Owner and ask her about how she would feel about me cleaning up her town for the Grail War. I'm the Overseer for the Grail War," Gilgamesh said, his face turning serious as he pulled up his light coat sleeve to show the mass of Command Seals there.

"Huh, that's a new role for you," Shirou Lily commented as he eyed the tattoo-like mysteries with interest. "Makes sense for you though. Hard to find someone more qualified to preside over a Grail War than someone whose title is literally the King of Heroes."

"Yeah, my thought exactly," Gilgamesh Lily agreed with a pleased smile. "As the King of Heroes, it is my duty to preside over wars between Heroic Spirits."

"I think your older self would complain about having to give away his treasure though," Shirou commented.

"Why would he do that?" Gilgamesh tilted his head curiously. "The contents of the Grail aren't mine and that is what the Grail War is about for us Heroic Spirits. And while obtaining the Grail would be a nice addition for my treasury, it is the joint property of the Matou, Einzbern, and Tohsaka. I would need to buy it from them first or wait for them to gift it to me."

"Which reminds me, I wanted to clean up the being called Zouken Matou." Gilgamesh frowned in distaste.

"Ah, him," Servant Shirou grimaced at the memory. "Going to kill him?"

"Yes," Gilgamesh Lily said firmly. "There are some things which shouldn't be tolerated and what Makiri is doing is one of them. But given he has been here for a few centuries and the Tohsaka haven't done anything about him and his depravations, I was just going to offer my help."

"Rather kind of you," the red-head teen snarked. "I would have expected you to acted without asking. Actually, come to think of it, I'm surprised your older self would have lived in the same town as Zouken for so long without killing him."

"He didn't act out or draw my older self's attention and to be fair, my older Archer self is an idiot. It's like puberty took out over half of his brain cells," Gilgamesh shuddered. "I wished I wouldn't have to go through that."

"I don't think he ever matured as Archer," Shirou commented with a thoughtful look. "He acts like a teen in the middle of teenage rebellion and never stopped. And if wasn't actually a king, he would fit in at a Chunibuyou convention."

"Hey!" Gilgamesh Lily protested. "I'm not that bad! I'm actually all that I say I am!"

"Sorry," Shirou smirked. "But if you weren't actually a hero out of legend, how would you have treated someone who made the same claims as he did?"

Gilgamesh Lily twitched into a pout. "He did have some people who treated him like that…"

"Huh," Archer said. "I'm surprised I hadn't heard of him then. He seems like someone that Taiga would have mentioned."

"Who?" Gilgamesh Lily asked curiously. "Is Taiga a pet? Seems like a good name for a tiger but most modern tigers don't talk."

"Sure, let's call her that," Shirou barely suppressed his smile at the memories of a Taiga crying over being compared to a pet tiger. Yet she still wore clothes that brought to mind the image of a tiger. "But why are you asking the Second Owner? Couldn't you act on your own now that your Master is -ah, occupied?"

"Kirei would have encouraged me, he hates Zouken. I have no idea why he didn't propose disposing of that worm. I think my older self would have done it in a heartbeat," Gilgamesh replied before shuffling his feet. "As for asking, it would be rude of me to act as a judge in someone else's territory without getting the ruler's permission."

"Ah, I keep on forgetting that you are polite now," Shirou realized. "But I think there might be some sort of agreement between the Tohsaka and Matou. Rin might not be able to give permission to kill him."

"Oh," Gilgamesh frowned. "That's bad. Nothing good comes out of agreements to let something like him live in your backyard."

"Yeah," the teenaged Archer agreed before smiling. "But Archers are notorious for their Independent Action skill."

Gilgamesh tilted his head before the lightbulb went off and he started to match Shirou's grin.

"As a class, we are noted for our initiative and the ability to act without bothering our Masters with the tiny details," the child Archer grinned.

* * *

As they walked up to the door, the two Lily Archer Servants were relaxed and stress free. Like they had just shown up to play some video games with Shinji.

Except you know, Shinji was a stone statue on some street in Fuyuki.

Ah well, they could just borrow his PS2. He certainly didn't need it.

As they climbed the few steps to the door, Shirou commented. "You know, the house is worse than I remember."

"Yeah," Gilgamesh frowned as he looked around. "The fact that my older self didn't try to remove this is a major indication of something being wrong with him. You don't leave environments like this around."

Emiya nodded as he pressed the doorbell.

At Gilgamesh's curious look, he commented. "It's good to be polite."

"True," Gilgamesh agreed before rocking back onto his heels to wait. "But the appeal of kicking the door open is rather tempting right now."

The two waited in the dead still silence.

There was no sound of birds here. Not even the hum of insect wings. It was like all life knew that battle was about to be joined and that someone would not survive.

That was to be expected. Zouken already knew they were here. And was probably prepared to receive them. And not in a welcoming reception with cookies and brownies either.

Several seconds later, the door opened.

* * *

Today was Sunday, Sakura noted dully as she finished washing the dishes from her breakfast before sitting back down at the table in her causal clothes. Which meant no archery practice, no school, and no going over to Senpai's place.

Just another horrible day at home.

Sakura would sigh but she was used to this state of affairs.

The doorbell rang.

Sakura got up to answer it, her Servant following behind her in Astral form, ready to see if it was the police trying to track down Shinji again.

If it was a door to door salesmen or missionaries… Grandfather had a special fate for them.

Apparently, one of them had interrupted a delicate experiment a century ago and he enjoyed teaching the rest the error of their ways.

Nobody annoyed grandfather and got away with it.

"I'm really tempted to kick down the door," a young voice said from the other side.

"Yeah, that would be cool," a familiar voice said. But why would he be here? "But we don't want to harm the innocents here so let's kick down a different door."

"Oh good. I wanted to try that at some point. It looked pretty cool in the movies."

Sakura hastened to throw the door open while it was still on its hinges to gaze upon the two people outside.

One was a pretty kid with golden yellow hair. The other was her Senpai.

But they were Servants, Sakura realized in shock as Medusa materialized behind her, black robe over armor and lance already drawn. Senpai was a _Servant_.

He was a _Heroic Spirit._

"Greetings Ma'am," the younger of the two boys, the one with the golden yellow hair, at the door said with an easy smile. "We're just two heroes wandering through. We were wondering if Zouken Matou is home? We would like to offer him a serving of 'kill, destroy, and burn'."

"And 'stab'," the Servant that was Shirou Emiya added in, his voice and expression dispelling any doubt that it was just someone who looked like him. "We just want to help remove some evil as heroes of justice."

The younger boy nodded in agreement. "That too. Oh, and as Overseer of the Holy Grail War, I feel it is my obligation to make the war fair. Only one Master per family and his Grail War is long over. Is he home?"

Unfortunately, Sakura hadn't been paying too much attention to their words, too busy processing the shock of seeing her Senpai as a Servant and Heroic Spirit.

But it made sense, Sakura realized as she finally accepted it.

Shirou Emiya was a hero. Sakura knew that. So why would it be surprising that her personal, amazing hero was on the Throne of Heroes?

It really wasn't. Senpai was a hero and heroes go to the Throne of Heroes. She just hadn't considered it that way before.

It looked like Senpai had managed to achieve his childhood dream and become a hero.

At the realization, Sakura felt a mixture of amazement for the great feat he had accomplished, happiness for him to have succeed in his goal, disappointment at not summoning him, scorn at him ignoring her misery for so long, and her usual anger at someone else being happy.

But she had learned to shunt away all of her usual negative emotions and bottle them up inside. The positive ones too.

Unless she was with Shirou, human Shirou, at his home. Then she let the good ones come out.

What would it be like for Senpai to be at her home? For her to let happier emotions emerge from her shell every day?

At the thought, Sakura felt a brief spurt of intense envy towards the unknown Master that had summoned Senpai as their Servant. Who got to come home to him on a more regular basis.

Sakura chided herself for feeling that. And Medusa was her friend so it was bad of her to wish she hadn't had summoned her and instead summoned someone else.

Besides Sakura would just die if Senpai saw her in the pit where she had summoned Rider, now Lancer.

"Sakura?" Servant Shirou asked with concern in his eyes. "Are you alright?"

"Yes," Sakura squeaked as she was reminded that the two Servants had asked a question. "Um, sorry, what was the question again?"

"Is Zouken home?" the boy repeated. "If he isn't, we'd really like to know where he is."

"Um, he is," Sakura answered, now wrestling with the belated shock from people politely knocking on the door to try to kill Zouken Matou. Usually if they were here for him, they were either already dying or busting the door down before dying. "But I don't think you should-"

_be here. Please, Senpai. You can't die. My heart will break if you die._

Sakura didn't believe that anyone could kill Grandfather. Not even a Heroic Spirit would be able to defeat him.

Was it correct? No, though admittedly, it would be much harder than killing any other Master. Did Sakura believe it? Yes. Years of torture and submission under his hand had resulted in Sakura believing that Zouken was untouchable, unharmable, and unkillable. No one could defeat him or survive opposing him. That would be impossible.

Kariya, her uncle, had driven that lesson home for her.

"I am Gilgamesh, King of Uruk, owner of every treasure of mankind," Gilgamesh smiles at Sakura, letting his fair youth shine through. "I think I can manage."

"And I'm here to help," Archer Lily mentions. "If you would let us in, we'll take care of him right away."

"But grandfather can't die," Sakura wrung her hands like she was helpless in a doomed situation.

This was her last chance to save Senpai. Because Zouken, after defeating these two, would go after mortal Senpai. If they existed, Grandfather wouldn't leave a threat to him live. He might kill them first or pull their strings like a puppeteer until they were no longer a threat.

Or just eat them like he had to numerous women in Fuyuki in order to sustain his long life.

"We have immortal killing weapons," Archer Lily mentions, dropping two copies of Harpe out from thin air into his hands.

"And I have plenty of pesticide," Gilgamesh dropped a box of 'Worm-a-cide' from a glowing golden circle into his hand.

"But, but-" Sakura protested, scared for the health of her Senpai, even if he was a Servant.

"Want any help?" Medusa Lily asked, her cloak vanishing to reveal a few pieces of armor over a tight body suit.

"Lancer!" Sakura cried, spinning around towards her friend.

The two heroes on the front porch looked at each other and shrugged.

"Why not?" they said in unison.

With that, Medusa Lily tugged Sakura away from the door, leaving enough room for the two heroes to come in.

"Thank you," Servant Shirou said, smiling brightly at Sakura.

Sakura blushed lightly even though she knew he wasn't the Senpai she was used to. Yet he was Senpai. From the future.

It was confusing, Sakura decided amidst the chaos of dozens of thoughts and emotions swirling together. Senpai was Senpai and now there was another Senpai who was Senpai too.

"Master," Medusa Lily said, tugging on Sakura's arm a little and drawing her back from her chaotic thoughts. "You should leave the house. It won't be standing after the fight."

"Most definitely not," Archer Lily wrinkled his nose in distaste at the smell. "We'll have to dig through everything to find every last trace of him."

"Heh heh," Gilgamesh Lily chuckled nervously. "And I'm not very good at limiting collateral damage yet. Actually, I don't think I ever learned or will learn how to refrain from collateral damage."

Sakura just nodded somewhat absently as her mind was still reeling a little from all the surprises dumped on her one after another and Shirou being a Servant yet still smiling like that at her.

Archer and Lancer stared at Gilgamesh with a flat look.

"Uh, I'll pay reparations?" he asked uncertainly, wondering what he was supposed to do to geet them to stop looking at him like that.

Hero Shirou sighed.

"Start learning control," he advised. "Wouldn't want to save a town only to destroy it in the midst of your fight, would you?"

"I will!" Gilgamesh Lily protested indignantly. "But I'm a Lily Servant. I haven't learned that yet."

"Will you destroy everything or not?" Lancer Medusa said flatly.

Gilgamesh thought for a second and looked away.

"If I destroy it, I can pay for it," he mumbled.

"Money can't fix everything, but it can replace possessions." Shirou said with a put-upon air. "That being said, we might as well write everything here off. I don't remember much, but Zouken should be a pretty powerful magus."

"So if your older self dealt with him, how did he do so?" Gilgamesh asked curiously as he started walking down the hall.

"Mostly, he ran," he admitted. "Zouken rotted everything that attacked him and was able to piece himself back together. I think his body was killed several times if I remember right, only for him to reform his body from any worms that survived. And even when he didn't have enough worms left to form a body, he still lingered around through any Crest Worm that survived. But if we use the right weapons over every worm we see, it should damage him badly. Possibly enough to…"

As the two Archers walked down the hallway towards the door to Grandfather's basement discussing battle strategies, Lancer started pushing Sakura to the door.

Sakura not really knowing what to do, let the smaller girl push her.

Should she run back and stop Senpai?

But Senpai was fulfilling her secret fantasy. He was saving her from Grandfather.

But she didn't want Senpai to die.

She had to stop him.

But Senpai was now a Servant. He was stronger than human Senpai.

But even Servants wouldn't be able to beat Grandfather.

But Senpai said that Grandfather had died. Without coming back even.

Could Senpai kill him? Was Senpai made a hero for saving her in the future?

No, Sakura scolded her brief flare of hope. You aren't that important. No one would become a hero for saving you. They would be a villain.

Like Medusa, treacherous hope whispered back. She is a villain in Greek myths yet she is your Servant.

Paralyzed by her internal debate, Sakura stumbled as she almost fell down the first step on the front porch.

"Sorry," Medusa apologized.

Sakura glanced over her shoulder.

Senpai and Gilgamesh were almost to the door.

"Now, we can kick down the door," Servant Senpai said with a hint of eagerness.

Sakura hadn't known that Senpai wanted to kick down doors.

Oh, now her lewder dreams would include Senpai kicking down her door before proclaiming his love for her and taking her.

On second thought, it sounded kind of exciting. Must be Senpai's charm.

The blond boy sighed.

"We shouldn't do that to the entrance of a magus's workshop," he condescendingly explained as dozens of golden circles appeared in the air above him.

Then streaks of light flew to the door and a resounding boom shook through the air.

"Spoilsport," Shirou grumbled.

"That's you!" Gilgamesh promptly retorted as he spun around to face Shirou. "_You_ didn't let me kick down the door when we _could_!"

"Wait outside. It'll be safer there," Lancer briefly said with one final shove towards the gate before turning around and sprinting inside as the two Archers argued about the proper time and situation to kick down a door.

Sakura turned to look one last time.

Senpai and the other Servant were already disappearing down into the staircase. Medusa Lily was right behind Shirou and in the tiny expressions that Sakura was still learning to read, she looked like she was looking forward to this.

The three Servants did sound like a marching band of explosives as things cracked, whistled through the air, and the walls shook as thuds resounded and buzzing was drowned out.

Sakura glanced over her shoulder one last time as the din started. Just in time to see Medusa's Lily pretty purple hair disappear down the stairs.

It is now too late.

Sakura couldn't stop Senpai now.

Sakura stood there on the cobblestones for a moment, contemplating if she should go down there. If she should stop Senpai for his own safety.

But she knew she wasn't brave enough.

Sakura didn't have the courage.

So once again, Sakura gave in and did the easy thing.

She walked forward, towards the gate to the Matou property.

The short driveway seemed to take forever to cross, as her mind buzzed with worried thoughts running in circles like a maze full of rats.

Will Senpai be alright? Will he die? Would even three Heroic Spirits be able to win against Grandfather?

Did she even deserve to worry about them? She had let them go down. She hadn't tried to stop them.

She hadn't even been able to even say the words.

But Senpai was now a hero. He was going to defeat Grandfather.

And Sakura wanted to believe in Shirou. Really, she did. Her heart was clenched tightly in a desire for hope. But he was going against Zouken.

Even though that Shirou was a Servant and would be stronger than a normal human, that wouldn't be enough.

Zouken wasn't able to die. He had survived four Grail Wars and had helped make the Grail. He was the one who suggested creating Servant Containers for the Heroic Spirits and knew Command Seals better than anyone.

Also, Grandfather had never feared Servants, even during the last Grail War. He had even helped Uncle Kariya summon a Servant despite Kariya's hatred for Grandfather.

As Sakura unlatched the gate, opening it, she worried, her thoughts twisting into circles and her emotions into knots. Her heart seemed to pound in her eardrums with fear.

Which was why, Sakura really didn't notice the house explode behind her.

A few milliseconds afterward though, she did notice the flash of light and the shutter sound of a camera going off right in front of her.

Sakura was brought back to earth, nearly leaping out of her skin, before blinking in startlement at the young elementary school boy who was looking at her in complete awe, slowly lowering the camera held up in front of his face.

"How did you do that?" he asked in amazement. "That was just—PERFECT!"

"Um," Sakura said, wondering what he was talking about.

"I mean, I was just looking for a photo to enter into an art contest for real-life moments and I was walking through this street, and then you came out of your home and then the house EXPLODED into a massive fireball!" the young boy rambled on excitedly, waving his digital camera around in one hand as the other gesticulated everywhere. "I couldn't have done better if I tried! Oh! I almost forgot, Mom said that I should ask if I have your permission to use any shot. Can I, pleeeease?"

The boy put on his best winsome smile that showed that one of his baby teeth had fallen out.

It didn't compare to Senpai's smile or the smile of the Servant he brought with him but it was still a cute smile.

"Um, sure?" Sakura said uncertainly as she turned around to see a cloud of smoke rising high into the sky from her home for the last decade.

Her mind and heart seemed to have frozen in shock. The world should have too.

She means, her home just blew up. With Senpai and Grandfather fighting inside the basement.

"YES! Thank you!" The boy jumped into the air, triumphantly posing with both arms up. "Oh wait, you need the fire department! I'll go call it!"

The boy took off running down the street, camera and strap bouncing around his neck.

He stopped at the street corner and turned around to yell, "Thank you miss who I've never met before!"

"No problem?" Sakura hesitantly said as she stared after him.

The sound of some cracking came from behind her and Sakura turned around just in time to see a wing of the house collapse in on itself expelling a cloud of dust.

Her heart and mind went off of automatic stillness as she regained expression.

"Senpai," she whispered as she thought of him, beneath the stairs, trapped in the pit, house crumbling down around him.

He needed her. She needed to help him.

Sakura stepped forward, back towards the house.

A gunshot, no, greater than a gunshot, cracked through the air as a few long swords flew up, chewing through the wooden rubble and shingles as if they weren't even there.

The battle was still on-going.

Sakura stared, her lungs breathing again.

Senpai was still alive. He wasn't giving up.

Sakura got to watch, almost as in slow-motion as another wing of the house crumbled.

It was weird, seeing something that was older than everyone but grandfather buckle and slide under its own weight.

Then it was toppling over, parts coming free from each into sheets that broke apart as bit by bit, they hit the ground in a continuous cascade of destruction and noise.

Sakura froze mid-step before backing up across the street.

And decided that maybe she should wait out here on the sidewalk of the street.

It wasn't far from the house but it was hopefully safer than here.

But what about Senpai?

Sakura's mind suddenly kicked back into gear and realized that the stairs down to the basement were already collapsed. She couldn't get to the stairs anyway.

She couldn't help Senpai. Medusa Lily and the blond Servant too, she supposed.

So she should be selfish and think of herself.

She didn't want to die.

Also, they had told her to wait out here.

She might as well be the maiden out here praying for the safe return of the heroes. That was what maidens in fairy tales were supposed to do, right?

But leaving aside her worthiness as a maiden in a story, who would even accept a prayer from _her_ of all people?

The gods had long left mankind after all.

And none of them would even consider a prayer from her as worthy of anything but striking down the monster that tried to contaminate them with her dirty wishes.

And then the worms inside of her clutched up, causing an involuntary whimper of pain to break through her lips as like a strong wave, pressure dropped into her mind and onto her soul.

But this was stronger, much stronger, than usual. It felt like an actual attack instead of 'training'. Also, Grandfather didn't attack like this. He usually didn't involve his 'training' of her into the daytime or if she was out in the public at all.

Sakura immediately set herself into the attitude and state of existence she hid herself in when in training. It helped a bit. But she still felt like her heart was being crushed, like a boulder was sitting on her crush and some giant was pushing down on it.

Was this another lesson? But for what?

She knew that Grandfather controlled her. She knew couldn't beat Grandfather. She knew that she couldn't escape him.

The only thing she could be proud of was that Grandfather couldn't break her.

And it was one thing that she loathed. How much easier would it have been if she just, gave in? If she just let herself die and become nothing more than a puppet?

But she wouldn't. She refused to from the very core of her spirit.

Even a dirty spirit, poisoned and defiled to every extremity, would struggle against its death.

_'Master,' _a thought came through her Master-Servant link to Lancer Lily.

* * *

'_Master,'_ Medusa Lily addressed Sakura over their Servant-Master link as her scythe reaped a swarm of blade wing worms only for more to dig their way free from the floor and walls. '_Please wait out there for a bit. Zouken isn't going down easily.'_

It was rather amazing really. Both of the Archers were carpet bombing the place and Zouken was still putting up a fight. Medusa reckoned that if she hadn't been nearly insignificant to either side, she would already be dead.

The proof was the battlefield.

The floor wasn't merely a pocket of craters now. The top couple feet of the floor had been utterly destroyed.

If the bottom of the stairs were still there, Medusa could have told you how much deep the floor had decreased.

Only, the stairs were rubble now. Zouken and the two Archers had destroyed the stairs pretty early on.

And as touching the ground meant death to the Servants as Zouken's familiars and spells, not to mention the poison mist that was Archer's worm-a-cide, were everywhere on the ground. Zouken's familiars were dying in droves yet some died only to release some spell that he had intended to use the familiar as a medium for.

The result was that the Archers and Lancer had to find ways to stay in mid-air or else discover what a genius magus could do to Servants.

Archer Lily, the teen-aged-looking red-head that her Master liked, was standing on top of the guard of a particularly large sword. One of several statue-like swords and more were appearing every second so that the old magus wouldn't be able to predict which sword Archer would jump to next.

The blond Archer Lily was flying in mid-air having put on some kind of shoe with wings.

Medusa?

She used her high A rank agility to kick off of another worm, the force of her jump splattering it into a disgusting brown mix of gore.

Sometimes she used worms, which made her grateful for the metal boots she had on. She would hate to have worm guts on her feet.

Sometimes she kicked off one of either Archers' swords or weapons as they flew past her or after they hit the ground.

Rarely did she use the fragile walls.

Regardless, Medusa knew that she couldn't stop moving.

If she slowed down, even a little bit, if she dared drop her agility to the equivalent of B rank or below-

-Zouken would kill her. Only her speed which made her into a very fast blur for Zouken kept him from taking her out in a sudden trap.

And if she tried on her own, he would have been able to eventually figure out her pattern and checkmate her, quickly killing her.

But she wasn't on her own. Instead she was with two very, very dangerous Servants that required Zouken's full attention.

As it was, Medusa knew that she wouldn't be able to defeat either. Especially as they now knew about her Cybele.

Good thing her objective for the Grail War wasn't to win it. She just wanted Sakura safe and free.

Amidst the continuous boom of explosions and golden glow mixing with dark and shadowy mists as well as the poisonous purple mist, Medusa cut a particularly fat worm in half before seeing what had been behind it.

Namely that part of the basement wall had collapsed, opening up a view into a secret room. A room that was full to the brink of, you guessed it, more Crest Worms.

Medusa wanted to sigh. But that would mean breathing the air in this foul place.

However, that brief glimpse wasn't long for the world.

The two Archers were already dropping powerful Noble Phantasms into the extension. More destructive Noble Phantasms than the ones they could use in the very room they were inside.

In other words, the new room was already full of fire, smoke and destruction. Plus a number of exotic effects from the sheer variety of powerful weaponry.

Medusa glanced up, petrifying another Crest Worm with her eyes, as the ceiling groaned, a deep rumbling sound, above her.

Belatedly, Medusa remembered that to keep the ceiling up, you needed walls or pillars or some kind of architecture.

Like the wall which had used to be part of this room.

Medusa Lily got to watch as a section of the ceiling came down with the kitchen cabinet and crushed a group of worms flat before the kitchen cutlery flew out from the now damaged furniture.

Zouken's spells quickly rotted—No, that was wrong.

His spells _devoured_ the wood, the silver, everything. Like his spell was some kind of powerful stomach acid.

It was a monstrous thing. A spell you would expect to find in the darkest corners of the world or with the evilest of gods.

Appropriate for a monster that had consigned Sakura to the worst of indignities.

Medusa's glance saw the last of silver utensils turn into shining dust before vanishing into the gloom. Yeah, Sakura wasn't going to be living here anymore. No silverware at the very least.

Before the last of the rotted metal and wood could vanish,

Then the mixture of Matou decay magecraft and a passing weapon from the ridiculously overpowered Archers destroyed the cabinet into splinters and rot.

The fight continued.

Until it suddenly didn't.

Medusa crouched atop one of the Archer's weapons. She didn't know which Archer, but she didn't want to be on the ground.

"I thought we weren't going to let him talk," the taller Archer reminded the other Archer. "He's a master at using words. If we let him talk, he'll find a way to hurt us or use us."

So that was why the two had immediately started shooting full speed as soon as they shot open the door to the workshop. Medusa had thought they just wanted to be boys and blast the door off its hinges.

"No," the red-eyed demi-god said with his eyes narrowed. "As much as I don't want to listen to this pest's words, we need to. We overlooked something."

"Like what?" Archer asked, eyebrow raised. "We used one of your barrier Noble Phantasms around the area before we even got onto the property. Nothing of Zouken can reach to another house. And if he tried to eat someone, he would still be stuck inside the barrier."

"So, what offense did I do to cause all three of you to turn against me?" The old man, the old monster spoke, as a slop of worms came out into a corner of the room. "I don't think my dear granddaughter would be pleased that her Servant threatens the one who holds her life."

_Holds her life…_ What did he mean?

"We forgot about Sakura!" the red-head suddenly yelled, a look of mortification and self-recrimination sweeping over his features. "She has his worms in her!"

Shirou, that was his name. That was the name of the boy her Master loved.

"There is nothing we can do about her," The other boy said with extreme distaste evident on his scrounged-up face. "All we can do is make her to be the last victim of this monster."

"Can't we save her somehow?" Shirou begged. "We just need to get the worms out of her. Surely, there is something in the Gate of Babylon—"

"Not with him holding her life in his hands," the boy who must be the hero Gilgamesh said, his eyes firmly set on the old man. "He can end it with just a thought. Just a squeeze of the worms and her vital organs will die in just an instant."

"Indeed, young heroes," the old monster mocked. "And even if this acute poison wipes me out, my death throes will undoubtedly involve the worms inside of her raging out of control, consuming her heart and mind until she dies. Will you _heroes_" And the word was definitely a slur from his mouth. "let the maiden die?"

Shirou was right, Medusa realized. Zouken was going to play off of their good nature and use words against them. He was going to threaten Sakura's life until they let him live if only so that Sakura lived.

"Let her go," Medusa ordered, letting her Siren Song skill play through her voice. "She has no more part in you."

The old man snorted. "I may be a man, but I am not so weak willed to let a Servant charm me into letting go of my granddaughter. What kind of neglectful grandfather would I be?"

Blast. Medusa's teeth ground against each other. He was too strong-willed despite being a rotting soul in possession of an inhuman body. If only she was more like her sisters and had greater charm as opposed to these petrifying eyes—

Her eyes.

"He can't kill if the worms are already dead," Medusa declared as her cloak reappeared around her as she kicked off in her strongest kick towards the doorframe which hung above a few remaining stone steps like a door above a cliff ledge to nowhere.

She had to move fast.

And it was a good thing that the Archers had understood. She would have had a hard time getting past them if they decided to shoot her too.

"So the Gorgon seeks to kill the ones dearest and most sisterly to her. Oh, how the legends play out again," Zouken mocked.

Medusa couldn't suppress her involuntary shudder even as she landed one foot on the top of the bottom stone step and flew forward, up the stairs, Harpe's sharp edge cutting through fallen architecture and clearing a way through the rubble.

She will kill her sisters while lost in mindless anger and bloodlust. Her older self already had even if she, the Lily, didn't remember it.

But this was the only way to save Sakura.

After all, what could worms do when turned to stone?

"How did you forget something like that?" she heard behind her from Gilgamesh.

"Hey, I have more memories of swords than I do of actual life," Shirou protested, his voice echoing up the passageway. "It takes a while to…"

_'Master!' _Medusa cried as she bounded through the cracks that she enlarged with her weapon. _'Where are you?'_

* * *

Rin could not ignore the sharp spike of mana being drained from her by Archer.

Even in the midst of her sleep, she wouldn't have.

And at the unholy early hour of 8 am, Rin was forced awake by her Servant doing battle.

She could feel the burn of her circuits as they opened to supply the needy Archer.

"Wha-" she sleepily said.

It was a Sunday, she remembered through the dense fog of her tired mind. No school.

She should sleep.

Rin dove her head back into her fluffy and warm pillow.

_'Archer,' _she complained. '_Stop that_.'

Sleep secured, she went back to sleep, held in the kind embrace of her bed who most certainly wasn't a surprising rude Servant version of her crush, the school's local poster child for being a selfless good boy.

Only to jolt back up as Archer invoked a massive amount of energy, forcing her circuits to open even further.

It was like a slap in the face and despite being rather rude, it certainly caused her to wake up further.

'_What?'_ she said, glancing at her clock.

8 A.M.

Sunday.

Way too early to be awake. She wanted to sleep until noon or maybe one, if she was lucky.

But her bond to her Servant was drawing power like he was fighting.

But it was too early for battle.

She should sleep-

Wait!

Was someone attacking? In broad daylight?

Mortal threat motivating her more than the delightfully sinful beckoning of Morpheus, Rin fell out of her bed, scrambling to find something better than pajamas to wear.

She needed to be presentable—

Wait, where was Archer?

As Rin ran to her closet, only stumbling a few times and she most certainly did not knock over a chair and her lamp while putting on her in-door slippers, she dove into her familiar bond to perceive through the senses of her Servant.

And found herself in what must be the most horrible place on Earth.

It was dark, it was full of mist, and it smelled.

And out of everything, it was simply smelling the room through Archer's nose that woke Rin up like a bucket of ice water to the face.

Figures that it would be her Archer to do something like that. Even if he was younger and closer to her date zone now.

_'Where are you!?' _Rin demanded as she took in the battlefield. '_How is someplace like this even in Fuyuki?'_

She could sense two other Servants near Archer. One was flying besides Archer and was the boy who had handed over Kotomine to her.

And the other was some girl who was bouncing around, cutting down—

Ugh. Crest worms.

Disgusting.

And they made the pictures of the creatures which she had studied to look nice and she had scrounged up her nose when she first saw them.

'_Ah, morning Rin,'_ Archer greeted her almost conversationally. '_Did you sleep well?'_

"What are you doing?" she demanded out loud as well, as she grabbed a jacket from her wardrobe.

She might be regrettably awake, but she certainly did not need to be cold.

'_Rescuing Sakura,'_ Archer replied as the boy Servant next to him suddenly stopped firing.

Rin froze in the middle of putting her jacket down.

_'SAKURA'S THERE!?'_ She screamed into his mind, causing Archer Lily to wince as he stopped shooting Noble Phantasms too. '_Where? Rescue her, right now! Do everything you can to save her!'_

What was Sakura doing there? She was a Matou, they should be protecting her from even being close to a place like _that_!

Forget getting dressed. Sakura needed her!

Rin cut the sensory sharing as she ran out of her bedroom, nearly hitting the wall as she turned corners in her haste, not even noticing that she still had her jacket in her hand.

Sakura was in danger. Sakura needed her. She had to save Sakura.

It was in that attire and attitude that Rin ran out her front door, only pausing long enough to put the jacket on so that she could free up a hand in order to pull open the front door.

'_Emiya!' _ she demanded as she ran down the hill towards the Matou mansion. _'Tell me what is going on!'_

'_Zouken Matou is threatening everybody in Fuyuki, so me and Gilgamesh came to stop him,' _Shirou told her calmly. Although the reason for him being calm might just be that he was rather distracted with his battle.

Realizing that, Rin flipped all of her Magic Circuits on. If Shirou was saving Sakura, then he needed all the power she could give him.

'_Who cares about him!'_ Rin flared as she ran at full speed down the slope. It felt rather like falling. '_What about Sakura?'_

_'He threatened to use the Crest Worms he implanted in Sakura to kill her if we do not retreat.'_

Falling's maximum acceleration from gravity was approximately 9.8 meters per second per second if you managed to remove drag coefficient of the air.

That was too slow.

She needed to be there, with Sakura now.

Rin let herself fly down the hill, every step feeling like she would fall over and tumble down, head first, down the hill.

_'Then stop!' _Rin commanded Archer. '_Don't let him kill Sakura. We can come back another time, when Sakura isn't in danger and after we have removed the Crest Worms in her._'

Crest worms in Sakura! That was—That was—

She didn't have the words for it!

_'Lancer has already left to protect Sakura from his threat,_' Shirou replied calmly with a grunt as his battle nearly distracted him from the conversation.

At that moment, Rin turned the corner and saw the Matou house down the street.

And two figures, one short and with a weapon staring towards the other, which was a greyish statue.

_Odd_, Rin thought as she got closer to the two. _The statue looks like—_

_SAKURA!_

* * *

Lancer Lily paid the utmost attention to how many milliseconds she kept her gaze on Sakura and exactly how much power left her while she did, all the while her heart beat to a nervous tempo.

Right now, she wished that she had her older self's Breaker Gorgon. If all they needed was to keep Sakura sealed away from Zouken, the Noble Phantasm would have helped a great deal.

But Lancer Lily figured that it wouldn't work. The worms were already inside Sakura and Zouken's soul resided in his worms. Breaker Gorgon wouldn't be able to separate the worm from Zouken because they were already part of Zouken.

As it is, petrifying Sakura felt like a tightrope. Not so strong as to render Sakura unable to return back to normal eventually. The effect would wear off over time if the person was not completely turned to stone. But not so weak that Sakura and the worms that were inside of her, would be able to act before being immobilized. Sakura's worms needed to be mostly stone and immobile, but still alive. If they died, then it would have been enough to kill Sakura too.

Lancer didn't like this tightrope. Both she and Sakura were on it and Medusa didn't want to die.

But Sakura was on the rope too and if Lancer made the rope too wobbly…

Sakura would fall off and die. And Medusa would soon follow without a Master.

So Medusa paid desperate strict attention, bending all of her focus and concentration on feeling her Master's life force slow down to nearly a halt through her bond to her Master while keeping her eyes under control.

Every moment had to be evaluated precisely. Every bit of power had to applied carefully.

But she didn't have much choice, Medusa grimly affirmed as she closed the flow of power from her eyes.

Sakura would die if Zouken could access her and the worms inside her. But Medusa would die if Sakura was turned completely to stone and it wouldn't help Sakura at all.

The only thing to do was to hope that her weaker Cybele, that wasn't up to nearly the strength of her future self, would be weak enough that it wouldn't kill Sakura instantly.

But she could still feel Sakura through her Master-Servant bond. Barely. Her Master was weak and in danger, on the verge of death due to Lancer's own eyes having nearly killed her.

But Medusa knew that if Zouken was able to control Sakura, then Sakura would die or Zouken would use Sakura's life as a form of control over the three of them.

And Gilgamesh was not one to be controlled, the goddess knew from legend and story.

Sakura would die either way.

And Medusa knew that she wouldn't be able to defeat Gilgamesh. The King of Heroes was too versatile and strong and she had seen her own Harpe among the weapons he had used.

That blade would enable him to kill her rather easily in an imagined clash between the two of them.

But now that Zouken's worms weren't threatening Sakura anymore, Medusa only had to pay attention to Sakura's recovery.

If Sakura recovered too fast, the worms would recover too. In which case Medusa would have to petrify Sakura again.

But if she petrified her too much, Sakura would die.

It was like pushing the tide to the shore. Push too long and the water washed away the sand. Push for too short of a time and the water would recede and the sand, which was both Sakura and the Crest Worms, would be exposed to Zouken.

Worse of all, this wasn't a cure. The Crest Worms would try to devour Sakura even if Zouken was dead. No, this was only a stop-gap measure meant to keep Zouken from making the situation worse while the Archers killed him.

After Zouken was dead except for the worms inside Sakura, then they could focus on getting rid of those worms.

"GET AWAY FROM HER!" A high feminine voice screeched as a few curses flew Medusa's way.

Lancer jumped back across the street, dodging the magical reddish-black bullets. Her magic resistance might be able to handle a few curses but any curse that a magus sent towards what they knew to be a Servant were probably powerful ones.

The curses streamed down towards her like bullets shot out of a machine gun, forcing Lancer to turn and face the person.

It was a girl in partially unbuttoned yellow pajamas with the face of cats on them. A jacket, one sleeve on, the other hanging free, flew out behind her along with long unbound hair. One sandal for wearing indoors was on her foot and Medusa could spy its partner on the sidewalk behind her.

Ah, the Tohsaka Master. Shinji had pointed her out while her older self had been there. But right now, she looked a lot more slovenly.

Yet Medusa had only rarely seen a person look both this enraged and this terrified.

The Tohsaka continued shooting curses at Medusa even as she took up position between Medusa and Sakura, breathing hard from her sprint.

Medusa felt a stab of annoyance.

She was trying to keep Sakura petrified but still alive. She couldn't do that if she had to deal with someone attacking her.

She ran along the wall, jerking and swerving to avoid the projectiles, aiming for a spot that would make sure that Tohsaka alone was now firmly in her gaze. Sakura's body had to be completely behind the other Master.

It felt like she was doing some of the wilder dancing from back at one of those festivals the humans had put on for holidays when she had been alive. Some of the dancing that had amused her older sisters because the humans looked crazy and so foolish doing it. The entire reason that they had gone to those festivals really.

But Medusa couldn't risk hitting Sakura with a strong blast of her Mystic Eyes.

So she danced along the wall, Rin's bullets pounding out the beat, until she was in the perfect spot, where she couldn't see the mostly-stone Sakura behind the living Tohsaka.

It wasn't easy. Tohsaka had quickly caught onto the fact that Medusa wanted to Rin to be in the line connecting her and Sakura and had quickly set to making sure that Medusa didn't get there with a will.

But now Rin was stuck. She obviously refused to step too far away from Sakura. But Lancer was so much faster than Rin that Rin couldn't step out from the middle of the line between the three women fast enough.

Which meant it was now time.

Even as a new flurry of bullets flew out of Tohsaka's hand, at least one aiming for her head, Medusa let her power rage out of her eyes towards Rin Tohsaka, her target.

Rin shuddered but the Magic Circuits flared to life across her body, repelling the petrification before it could set in, her arm moving half as swiftly as before being exposed to Cybele. But the enemy Master didn't fire the spell at her fingertip, only held it there.

Zeus. Of course, it wouldn't be that easy.

She was a child; her Mystic Eyes weren't as strong as they would be in the future. If she hadn't been affected by the potion of youth, Rin would have needed the equivalent of C rank Mana to resist being turned instantly into stone.

But for Rin to not even be slowed down to a crawl…

Rin must have strong circuits.

Rin's eyes narrowed. "Petrification by means of Mystic eyes. Only one being in legend is famous for having the eyes of Cybele. Medusa."

Medusa tsked.

Rin not only was stronger than she expected, but she was in between her and Sakura and now knew her True Name.

Things just wouldn't be easy, now did they?

* * *

"Wee-wah! Wee-WAH! WEE-WAH!"

Rin froze as she heard the familiar sound.

It was the sound of a fire truck. One that was getting closer.

And despite staring at Medusa, who looked like she was summoned into a Lancer class, Rin could easily see the flames now licking the Matou Mansion behind the Servant.

Wait, why were people aware of what was going on?

Rin groaned as she realized something.

Shirou Emiya, her Servant, must not have put up a Bounded Field to obscure what was going on inside the mansion. Despite being a modern magus with magecraft skill, he hadn't set up a protection against mundane attention.

Now because of his failing, everyone now knew that the Matou Mansion was suffering from fire and-

_CRAAASSH!_

-structural damage, to put it lightly.

How were they going to hide this?! Kirei would—

Oh wait. The overseer was a prisoner in her prison—she means, she was hosting the overseer while he was in a state that he couldn't carry out his duties.

Which means she would have to cover this up.

"Archeeeerrr," Rin growled as she realized how much work it would be to cover this up.

"WEE-WAH! WEE-WAH!"

The fire truck was getting closer and she didn't have the time or resources to cover this up.

Which meant she would have to break off this fight with Medusa.

"Tch," Rin clicked her tongue as she let her Gandr dissipate.

Wouldn't have done any good. Medusa's Magic Resistance would render her curse useless.

Rin guessed that Medusa didn't realize that or she would have just taken the curse head-on and ignored everything.

But she couldn't hold a bluff now. Not with the need to hide magecraft from everyone coming.

Opposite her, Medusa's eyes darted to the where the sound was coming from, before astralizing into something that could only be detected through magical senses.

The Servant didn't leave though. She just jumped diagonally across the street to the same side that Rin was on.

Which meant that Rin couldn't leave either.

She refused to leave Sakura out here where the hostile Servant could kill her.

_Okay, that's most of them,_ Archer Lily commented suddenly into Rin's mind, making her jump. _His soul should be in pieces now that all of the worms here are dead. We'll still need to hunt down the rest but shouldn't take long as he can't leave the estate._

_Archer!_ Rin demanded. _What is going on and why did a Servant attack Sakura?_

_Hmm,_ Archer hummed in though. _Oh, you're talking about Medusa. Yeah, she decided that in order to remove the last of Zouken's worms out of Sakura, we needed to stop him from killing her or having the Crest Worms eat her. Medusa seemed to have a plan so we let her go take care of that._

_Wait, what?_ Rin asked as the fire truck turned onto the street. _Medusa just petrified her! Also, the fire truck is here!_

WEE-WAH! WEE-WAH! WEE-WAH!

_Oh,_ Archer commented. _Well, I guess we should make sure that the—Hold on. That doesn't sound good…_

Rin took a chance and dove through the familiar bond to perceive through Archer's senses even as odd creaks and pops started to mix with the sound of sirens.

Rin had just enough time to see the entire ceiling of the room Archer was in fall down towards him.

Rin opened her real eyes in time to see the entire Matou Mansion vanish.

Into a brand-new sinkhole.

_Guess we shouldn't have used so many Noble Phantasms, _Shirou Emiya remarked as he astralized to avoid getting hit by a mansion.

* * *

Gilgamesh sat upside down on his ship.

Well, he was sitting right side-up. But only from the perspective of Vimana which was upside-down to the earth.

You see, since he was in a human body, he couldn't astralize. Since he couldn't astralize, he couldn't do as the Archer of the Fifth War had done and just shift his existence out to avoid getting hit by mortal matter.

And he really, really, _really_ didn't want to touch the ground of Zouken's basement.

So flipping Vimana upside down was the best call he could make to protect himself from the falling wood, rocks, and everything else that made up a mansion.

Okay, he could have pulled out a shield or something, but sitting upside down on Vimana was cooler!

"Well," He said to the empty air as he pulled out a satellite connected wireless laptop. "I did warn them that I might do some collateral damage."

Opening up the first-rate, mystical laptop, the boy started typing.

Nobody asked me to hold back, you know.

Wait, what, that isn't what I-

If nobody cares about the Matou mansion, why would I care about leaving it intact?

I think I-

So nobody should be surprised that I ended up destroying it. Be grateful that I let you see such a spectacular explosion.

Wait, are you talking about the explosion when Sakura walked out of—HOLD ON! WHO IS WRITING HERE?

And I'm bored.

Gilgamesh?! Who let you at the computer?

I let myself!

Aren't you a child now? And inside the story?

Fool, nothing, not even age or being changed inside a story can restrain the King of Heroes—ACK!

"Gilgamesh, your mom wants you to finish your vegetable! Then you can go outside and play!"

Mwahahaha! I have brought forth my secret weapon, Enkidu!

NOOOOOO! YOU CAN'T MAKE ME EAT MY VEGETABLES!

(Author's Mutterings: I'll have to rewrite this section so that nobody knows that Gilgamesh hacked my story.)

* * *

By the way, the boy got second place in the art contest when he submitted his photo.

The comments were "That can't be real." "Wait, is this why the fire department was out that day? I remember them going past my house." "Very fortuitous timing, young man. Very fortuitous." "Excellent contrast. The sudden end of peace in a single moment. And yet, it is an event that happens daily." "Too bad this is a contest for everyday moments. You would have taken first place in any other contest."

And of course, "Rejoice, shonen."

* * *

Actual Author's Note: I have to say, this chapter took a while. Having to go on hiatus for the last month or two did not help.

Also, if anyone really wants, they should make a drawing of the Matou house blowing up behind Sakura.

Some images are just meant to be. And it is a tragedy that this one doesn't exist.


	4. Chapter 4: The Traumatizing Servant

**I know people have been looking forward to new chapters. However, Telekinetic's Sword is on hiatus on account of struggling with a perspective point. I'll eventually be able to write that character right...**

**Also, not helping that I have been working on a new story. 12,500 words right now so it looks like I might have something new to put up sometime soon after I doublecheck some characterization.**

**Technician's Order is in the interesting puzzle of me working on the entire next arc all at once. In other words, chapter 18 is still in need of filling out while Chapter 20 is almost as complete as chapter 15.**

**And then there was life... FGO in July cut into my writing time as it was a lot of note taking from doing interludes and story line for Agartha. Got a better grasp of a bunch of character though so that will come in handy, I hope. June was me being burned out. August had the fun of getting a stigma in my eye and having to cut down computer time as a result. Still got a lot written despite that.**

Chapter 4: The Traumatizing Servant

Beta-read by Pallan Minerva

"Okay," Shirou said as he materialized on the outside of Fuyuki's newest sinkhole. "Let's check: I'm alive, Sakura... let's call that a maybe, Zouken is mostly dead, and Rin is upset at me."

He nodded to himself. "All in a good day's work for a Hero of Justice."

"Hey, Faker!" a voice came from the bottom of the mansion.

"What?" Shirou yelled back.

"I can't hear you! I'm speaking through the original megaphone!" Gilgamesh yelled.

"Then how did you know how to answer me?" Shirou commented to himself.

"Clairvoyance and Shu Naqba Imuru!" Gilgamesh said. "Now stop interrupting me, it's rude!"

_If you know what I am saying, then shouldn't you be able to converse with me?_ Shirou Lily wondered.

"There are just a few Crest Worms left now. I have them all lined up and dying, so go ahead and lift the barrier," Gilgamesh ordered. "After this, the only ones that will remain are the one in the Matou Master and a few pockets of worms. Take care of the ones in her and I'll finish off the rest."

Shirou nodded and turned to leave.

"Oh, and your Master's payment for basically doing nothing is another Command Seal to replace the one she has already used. She doesn't want to start at a disadvantage, right? We're basically in a new war now, anyway."

Shirou nodded. Rin would ask for payment. More out of the principle of the thing than feeling like she had to be bought off, but she would ask for payment nonetheless.

"And if she asks for more, tell her that I've already given her a free bit of information. That should be the extra she wants."

Shirou nodded and shifted his weight to take a step—

"And when she gets too greedy after that, I can always pay with a Noble Phantasm. The experience in setting up new Bounded Fields around her home would be good for her education."

Shirou acknowledged the threat to demolish the Tohsaka family Bounded Fields that protected their home if Rin pushed her luck.

Shirou lifted one foot up—

"Oh, and I would like a tub of ice-cream when this is done, thanks for offering."

"Anything else you want, your Majesty?" Shirou said as he waited for the next interruption.

"I already told you what I want, weren't you listening? Although, maybe a sugar cone would be nice…" Gilgamesh mused through his megaphone. "And it better be the good kind of ice-cream, the second from the left in the store. Yes, the Jeni's one."

"You're seriously using your clairvoyance for that?" Shirou muttered under his breath.

"Of course," child Gilgamesh answered the rhetorical question. "Ice-cream is important."

Shirou sighed but nodded, stepping aside for the rush of firefighters and police officers flowing onto the scene through the now open gate.

* * *

Rin waited next to her petrified sister, trying to look like it was natural for her to be here. Which meant buttoning up her jacket, pulling it down to cover most of her pajamas, retrieving her slipper, and keeping an unobtrusive eye on the Servant who had _killed her sister._

Why, Rin was not too upset about it.

Why would she be upset about _her Servant's sister killing her?_

"Hey Rin," Archer greeted her, strolling out of the mansion with a bit of sweat dampening his hair. _He_ wasn't covered in dust or rocks, though. The bastard came out of this looking way better than he should have.

Rin hastily shunted her feelings aside. She was upset, and no amount of good-looking hunk would distract her from that!

"'Hey, Rin,'" Rin placed her hands on her hips, her whole posture screaming irritation, apart from the pleasant smile on her face. "Is that all you have to say after going off on your own, breaking a treaty between the Matou and the Tohsaka that neither would ever attack the home of the other during a Grail War, and waking your Master up?"

_And what were you thinking when you got Sakura involved!_

"Um," Shirou Lily rubbed the back of his head. "Gilgamesh came by to see you this morning, and wanted to tell you, but we felt that you might not like being woken up."

"Oh, thank you for your consideration," Rin thanked her Servant with a smile. "Why, I do enjoy being _rudely woken up _instead only to discover that my Servant has declared open season on my home."

Shirou winced at her acerbic words.

"Gilgamesh is responsible," Shirou threw his fellow Servant under the bus of Rin's wrath. "He also said that he would give you payment for doing—I mean, for having loaned your Servant."

"Equivalent exchange, huh?" Rin crossed her arms across her chest. "What could be worth all of this mess?"

"A new Command Seal," Shirou said.

Rin paused.

"He can't give that," she pointed out. "He would need to be the Overseer to offer a Command Seal as recompense for intruding on the Grail War, and he could only give it for something that would threaten the integrity of the war or the secrecy of magecraft."

"Zouken was threatening the war," Shirou informed his Master, "and Gilgamesh took the position of Overseer before handing Kotomine over. He just didn't have the opportunity to tell you last night."

"I see," Rin distractedly said as her mind started making connections. Yet Archer was somewhat unnerved as, for some reason, he could just see money signs appearing in her eyes. He might have just figured out why Gilgamesh was so annoyed when they had parted ways. "But that's only for the loan of my Servant. The cost of breaking our long-standing agreement with the Matou and risking my family home and workshop is far greater than that."

"Well, there is also the fact that this is essentially a new Grail War so that indicates that similar changes has happened to the other Servants." Shirou theorized. "The only way it could be a new Grail War would be if all of us were made younger besides only me, Lancer, and Gilgamesh. So maybe all of the other Servants got changed too."

Rin was shaking her head. "The value of the information is insignificant to the safety that our treaty provided. That won't be nearly enough. But he is Gilgamesh, King of Uruk, right? Owner of a massive treasury known as the Gate of Babylon? Surely he has something of value that he can offer in reparation."

Archer winced. "Well, he did say that—you know, I'm going to quote him on this. These aren't my words so don't take it out on me."

"Oh?" Rin asked, the question slithering dangerously in the air like she, and not the Servant hovering protectively over Sakura, was the deity associated with snakes.

"Um," Shirou Lily swallowed before spitting out. "'I can always pay with a Noble Phantasm. The experience in setting up new Bounded Fields around her home would be good for her education.'"

Rin froze.

Considered it.

Started sweating.

"On second thought," Rin hid her nervousness well but her eyes were looking a little wild at the thought of rebuilding all of her family's Bounded Fields in the middle of a Grail War. "I think that the value of my real estate might just be enough to cover the price. And I can always renegotiate a new treaty between the Tohsaka and the Matou."

Shirou Lily's relief was palpable as the greed of his Master receded to an unhappy rest.

Until Rin hissed. "But that will mean dealing with _Shinji_."

She shuddered in disgust.

"Petrified," Lancer said with a faint undercurrent of satisfaction in her voice before she shifted and looked away, looking like nothing more than a child trying not to be caught lying and just being cute about it. "Accident."

Rin did not look impressed.

"Well, all's well that ends well." Shirou declared as he tried to move everything along before tensions sprung up again. "Zouken is mostly dead and soon will have gone onto his long-awaited afterlife. Sakura is—"

"Petrified!" Rin hissed as she pointed at the statue she was standing next to. "Which was something that she hadn't been last night!"

"Yes, well," Shirou acknowledged, shifting from side to side nervously. It was like a cute puppy trying to explain away the mess it had made. "She'll get better, right?"

The last was said to Medusa who nodded under her black cloak.

"Not permanent," the goddess informed.

"See, Sakura will be back to normal in no time at all," Shirou promised to his angry Master.

Rin ground her teeth without making any sign on the outside. It was a skill she had learned from having Kotomine as her guardian for the past decade. She wanted to be angry!

"And what about the Crest Worms?" Rin reminded them, her voice saccharine sweet in a way that made his teeth rot. "You know the ones that you said were inside of her and would kill her?"

"Oh, right," Shirou took on a trapped expression. "Give me a moment…"

"A moment!" Rin almost shrieked, only to bring her volume back down as she realized that she was in public and that they were still surrounded by emergency services. "And how will Sakura be 'in a moment'?"

"I'm looking, I'm looking," Shirou assured her as his eyes were far off. "I'm trying to see what I have that would help. Rule Breaker would remove the worms from Zouken but they would still be inside Sakura. Um, that sword wouldn't work, Avalon? Might work… but she would need a connection to that Saber and I don't know if she was summoned. I think she was but this is an alternative timeline…"

"You are hopeless!" Rin threw up her hands in exasperation. "This is why I told you to back off! We could always have done this later, after preparing—"

"Oooh," Shirou interrupted her, his face brightening up. "That might work."

"What?" Rin snapped as both her and Medusa's eyes pinned Shirou.

"I think I have something that might work," Shirou said with excitement. "It is from the experience of an exceptional hero, a true hero of justice. I can copy her skill and—No, the Crest Worms are part conceptual aren't they? Not purely physical."

Rin and Lancer both slumped slightly.

"Wait, I'm a Servant," Shirou as the spark of excitement leapt back to life.

"No kidding, Archer," Rin snarked. "Any other obvious points you wish to make? Like how Sakura is going to die because of you?"

"No, she won't die," Shirou said before wavering. "Well, she may still die. It is a risky procedure after all."

"But if we are going to remove Crest Worms from Sakura, then we need a Spiritual Surgeon, and the only one I know of happens to be puking his guts out." Rin countered. Medusa's face soured, and she took a few steps away from the twin-tailed tsundere.

"Not literally," the magus grumbled, looking away. "I haven't figured out to make him literally puke his guts out. That's the next set of experiments. I'm hoping that disgorging internal organs will actually get through his masochism so that he actually suffers instead of becoming happy...

"But enough about the mess that Archer will be cleaning up when we get back," Rin dismissed before laying her hands on her hips again and staring angrily at Shirou. "Now tell me about your 'risky' plan to save Sakura."

"Well, it is simple," Shirou said as he held a hand up. "I'll just remove the Crest Worms from her myself."

A beat.

"That's it?" Rin asked skeptically. "Sakura has Crest Worms inside of her and you are just going to remove them yourself?"

Shirou nodded, a light of hope still shining in his eyes. "I am a Servant. A being not wholly confined to the material plane. In a contest between me and any Crest Worm, I will win. And with these—" Shirou manifested a sharp British surgical knife in his hand. "and her teachings on medical techniques, I can even remove the physical traces of the Crest Worms without killing Sakura. And as I remove the physical traces, I can drag out the non-physical parts as well."

Rin wavered. Shirou was rather confident about it.

"Trust me," Shirou said with an ever-growing spark of enthusiasm in his eyes. "This will work."

* * *

It was another beautiful winter morning, Taiga reflected as she skipped down the street to her favorite udon store. It was Sunday so Shirou would be sleeping in from staying up late all night working on some project or another, which meant that having breakfast there would mean waiting a long, long, long time.

And she wanted breakfast!

And then she had heard the sirens and curiosity got the best of her and she was now walking down the street, rudely eating a few rice balls out in public as she wondered what disaster had happened in the rich foreigner's part of the town.

As she turned the corner to head down the hill to where the sirens were coming from, she saw an unexpected sight.

Shirou was out running with a stone statue of Sakura on his shoulder while a small child in a ratty black cloak held up her feet behind him as Rin Tohsaka ran beside them.

"Good morning, Taiga," Shirou Lily greeted her.

"Good morning," Taiga greeted back automatically as she rubbed her eyes.

She must be asleep.

She opened her eyes and looked back up the street.

Yup, Shirou was still carrying a life-like stone statue of Sakura, but now he was carrying it into Rin Tohsaka's mansion as she opened the gate.

Taiga pinched herself on the wrist and finding it to only hurt a bit, nodded.

And immediately turned around to march to Shirou's place, ignoring that her crushed rice ball was falling off of her wrist where she had pinched it instead of her skin.

She must be dreaming as she could have sworn that she had seen _Shirou _running with a stone _statue of_ _Sakura_ while a little girl with hair that must have come from the Matou family, carried the back half while _Rin Tohsaka,_ _the school's honor student, _ran alongside them.

This is obviously just a dream which means that it will soon be time to wake up and go eat breakfast at Shirou's.

Oh wait, it is Sunday. Shirou won't be making breakfast anytime soon.

Oh, wait. This is a dream! Her dream. Which means that Shirou will not only be awake but also putting the finishing touches on a five-star buffet breakfast! With all of her favorites!

Taiga wiped some drool from her mouth and doubled her speed towards Shirou's dining room.

Home. She meant Shirou's home. She wasn't thinking only about the food.

Yeah, she was worried about him! That maybe the murderer with the bladed weapon who had been on the news had stabbed him!

Or worse, hurt his arm again and couldn't cook!

* * *

"So, what do you need, Archer?" Rin asked as she helped the two Servants get Sakura through the doorway to her home. "Anything from your house? Gemstones, Mystic Codes, rare Phantasmal parts?"

"Awfully generous of you Rin," Shirou remarked.

"I-It's for reestablishing our contract with the Matou!" Rin blurted, her face red as she turned away. "Anything I spend here, I can get paid back later after Sakura is restored to health. And it will provide an edge in negotiations too."

"Yup, as I thought. You are a good person, Rin," Shirou said with a pleased expression.

"Idiot!" Rin said, blushing up a storm. "It's all for the sake of negotiations, for negotiations!"

"Saying it twice doesn't make true, you know," Shirou shot back.

"Archeerrrr," Rin growled, holding up one hand with two Command Seals on it.

Shirou threw up the hand that was less necessary to hold Sakura steady in surrender.

"Okay, okay, I'll stop, just don't waste a Command Seal before Gilgamesh can give you a new one," Shirou capitulated.

Rin's command seals stopped glowing.

"You should have behaved in the first place," She grumbled as she put her hand down. "Making me waste it like that."

Ding-dong.

Rin paused and looked down the hallway to the front door which led to the gate outside.

"I'll go see who it is," Rin declared before squeezing past Shirou and Lancer in the hallway.

Shirou had to keep himself from shivering as Rin brushed by him, the scent of her hair rising up to his nose as he felt the brush of her arm and shoulders across his.

Lancer Lily tapped the floor loudly with her foot.

"Sorry," Archer Lily apologized for holding her up to deal with his hormones.

Rin just was attractive to him, and having her in such close proximity was distracting.

The pair carried Sakura into a greeting room that was out of view from the entryway. Carefully, the two Servants set down the statue of Sakura, whose hands were frozen in place, clutching at her heart.

Shirou regarded the girl who had been close to him as a sister sometimes. Or sometimes she had been closer.

He didn't remember. His Reality Marble was specialized in gathering, storing, and replicating swords but one of the easiest functions to master was reading them and their history. Archer Lily had millions of billions of swords, ranging from the humble butter knife fresh from the factory to Noble Phantasms who had thousands of years of experience.

And Archer remembered them all. The contradicting ones from alternative timelines. Battles against Medusa, battles alongside Medusa, battles in any of the Grail Wars, battles outside of Grail Wars, battles where Medusa had ended up as Shirou's Servant or battles where Shirou Emiya killed Medusa.

All versions of those weapons were there. Contradicting history or not, Archer remembered each.

Unfortunately, with so many memories that he could never forget as his Reality Marble would not let him, Archer couldn't remember what his life had been. Oh, he had some memories of it. He knew that Saber had been his Servant. He knew that certain Servants were particularly dangerous, that Saber was beautiful, and that Sakura's Shadow was practically a prelude to him getting called in as a Counter-Guardian—

Wait, that wasn't his mortal life's memory. Shoot. He was mixing them up _again_.

"All right, so what do we need for this plan to heal Sakura to work?" Rin said as she walked in, Gilgamesh trailing behind her.

Gilgamesh waved hello and said. "I've covered up the Incident at the Matou Manor. They now think that it was just a very old basement wall collapsing that cascaded into an explosion and then into a sinkhole."

"While true," Shirou commented. "That was awfully fast work."

Gilgamesh grinned, his eyes closed. "Eyewitness testimony from a charismatic and brave boy who rushed onto the scene at the first sound of trouble might have contributed to the quick wrap-up."

"While making our cover story straight is worthwhile, we have more important concerns," Rin dismissed impatiently. "Now, what do we need to get Zouken out of Sakura?"

Everyone turned to look at Emiya, except Sakura who was still stone.

"Well, I need a clean spot to work with. Preferably somewhere with an elevated table large enough to put Sakura on," Shirou answered. "Oh, and some plastic gloves would be good. Also, I'm going to need a lot of magical energy for a sustained amount of time. If the place is sanitary and sealed from outside elements such as germs, it would reduce the energy expenditure, but if not then I can do without."

"Sounds like we'll need to use my workshop," Rin mused out loud. Then she agreed with a sharp nod. "Fine, you can use it. I don't have plastic gloves in your hand size though, so you'll have to go out and buy some."

"I'll buy," Medusa spoke up before holding out her hand, palm up.

"What, do you think that I am going to—" Rin broke off as she looked around.

Archer shrugged, he had been summoned without a wallet, cash or card.

Gilgamesh smiled brightly, indicating that he is a young, cute boy, and you wouldn't make such a fair youth spend his well-earned allowance, would you?

Sakura was still a stone statue whose purse was either buried in the ruins of the Matou Manor or stone in her pocket.

Medusa, Sakura's Servant, was in the same boat as her.

And then there was Rin. The only person here with a financial status that would pay.

Rin groaned as she brought out her purse from her skirt pocket and grudgingly handed over yen bills one at a time. "This better be paid back in full." She grumbled.

Medusa accepted the money and vanished as she went out to get the supplies.

"So, let's get Sakura down to the Workshop," Rin said as she turned to Shirou with a bit of a grumpy frown. "I'll stay home today so you'll have your supply of energy."

The red-headed Servant nodded and carefully moved to pick up Sakura.

"I hope this works," Rin muttered to herself as she hovered over Shirou, making sure that he wouldn't even chip her sister on a door or something.

* * *

Of course, it wasn't that simple. They had to clean up Rin's workshop, put the books and gemstones away in different parts, and make sure that everything was organized.

Gilgamesh was as much help as you could expect. Namely, he made great progress on his Gameboy game while sitting on a safe and kicking his feet, but not so much progress on moving stuff around. Yet, if you asked, he could tell you exactly where they had left the book that Rin was trying to find.

Archer did a great deal of moving stuff around. The heavier the better in Rin's obvious opinion.

Medusa did come back and she did help carry stuff around, but that was mostly scrolls and books and the like as compared to Archer's statues, metal objects, and occasional blocks of stone.

"Biased much?" Archer asked as carried a heavy and fragile case of gems into another room while Medusa got to take a scroll.

"I'm not into using child labor," Rin said dismissively. "The lawsuit claims would tie up more resources than I would like."

"Yet her strength is higher than mine," Shirou said as he left the room.

"Who was it who tried to get me to stop working on Kotomine last night saying that it wasn't ladylike?" Rin yelled towards the door.

"Forget ladylike, it wasn't humane at all!" he shouted back.

"Ignore him, dear," Rin said in a falsely sweet voice pitched to carry as she gave Lancer another scroll case to carry. "Leave the strenuous work to the lazy men folk."

Gilgamesh gave a friendly wave at the indirect dig and shouted out. "You'll want to move that three centimeters to the left, Archer! The ball you'll set there in 15 minutes will roll away unless you do."

When Archer came back in for the next load, it was to meet a smug smile from Lancer who was clearly enjoying being doted on, even if Rin was doing it for the sake of playfully arguing with her Servant.

He just sighed and pretended to be put upon.

And took the bundle of scrolls from Lancer when Rin's back was turned.

But finally, hours later, a room in the workshop was cleared and clean and a table large enough to put a girl on had been dragged out to the center of the room.

Gilgamesh turned off his game and dropped it into the Gate of Babylon, face getting serious now that the serious work was about to begin.

Rin watched carefully as the other two Servants carefully lifted and raised Sakura, who was still mostly stone but some hints of color had returned to her hair as the petrification slowly regressed.

"So how long until the operation will start?" Rin asked fretfully as she looked over the still stone statue. "Stone statues tend to be better suited for chipping than surgery so how long will Sakura be like this?"

"I can start it at any moment," Shirou said as he pulled the box of gloves to him and put two on. "The Noble Phantasm that will turn this room into the optimal environment for an operation will cure her petrification automatically. A partially completed petrification would be treated like a toxin and cured automatically."

Rin blinked. "Then why wouldn't it remove the worms from Sakura right away?"

"Because it negates all hostility and toxins while inducing recovery effects," Shirou responded as he closed his eyes in concentration. "The worms also count as lifeforms so it would heal them while healing Sakura too. But while the Noble Phantasm is active, the worms cannot harm Sakura at all. The only way around the enforced ceasefire is to be focused on saving someone to the point that you believe that your harmful actions are for their benefit and health.

"That said," Shirou hesitated. "You probably want to step out, Rin. This is still surgery and it will not be pretty."

Rin looked like she wanted to insist on staying but thought better of it.

"Alright," she agreed as she turned to the door. "Just know that if she dies, you better die trying to prevent it."

Medusa crossed her arms, conveying her intent to stay and be with her Master through it all.

"Don't worry," Shirou Lily said, his eyes still closed as he bent his will towards reproducing the Noble Phantasm.

"In that case, I'll take this out," Gilgamesh said as he pulled out a Noble Phantasm blanket. "As long as she is on top of this, she'll stay asleep."

"Oh, oops," Shirou said, opening his eyes again. "Yeah, keeping her asleep during the surgery is a good idea."

A minute later, blanket underneath Sakura, Shirou Lily closed his eyes.

He had to get into the right mentality to use this sword. The sword was just a symbol, not even a real thing, just an image.

But, the image took the shape of a sword and it attacks all toxicity and aggression in its range.

And that was enough for Archer to copy it.

But without the proper mentality, it was useless as its strength came from the mentality of a woman who devoted her entire life to healing the sick.

But Shirou could read her attitude and spirit from the various knives she had used as a battlefield medic. Every knife she had used in surgery, every blade she had used to cut a tourniquet, every saw that she had wielded in an amputation, all of her efforts to save just one more life.

"Trace On. Judging the concept of creation. Hypothesizing the basic structure. Substituting the composition material. Imitating the skill of its owner. Sympathizing with the experience of its growth. Reproducing the accumulated years. Synchronizing the mentality of the wielder. Excelling all processes."

Shirou's eyes opened, his golden-brown eyes now with a tint of red in them.

And behind him, a giant glowing sword appeared with a far fainter white gowned figure behind it. The image was too faint for anyone to determine who it was, whether male or female and the light of the sword drowned it out.

"I will purge all that is toxic, all that is harmful!" Shirou declared as the sword hung behind him in the air. "For as long as I have this power, I shall lead everyone to happiness!"

Gilgamesh lifted an eyebrow up at the Noble Phantasm.

"Nightingale Pledge!" Shirou declared boldly.

And the sword struck down into the ground, purifying the room and making it sterile.

Sterile enough for Shirou to operate in.

"I will save you, even if I have to kill you!" Shirou declared as a pair of surgery knives appeared in his hand. "Commencing medical treatment!"

With that, Shirou stepped forward and brought the knife down on Sakura.

* * *

Rin paused as she passed a room and heard an odd trembling and sound.

She cocked her head, listening before opening the door.

The room was empty. Except for a closet which was rattling on its short stubby legs.

Rin carefully walked up. She didn't know what was inside it. But it probably wasn't a robber as she had only let the 3 Servants and Sakura's statue in.

But that didn't mean it couldn't be another magus, although such a magus would be extremely skilled to slip through her defenses without her knowing.

Or it could be Assassin.

But, what kind of Assassin would fail so utterly at hiding that someone could find them?

However, Rin reminded herself, Heroic Spirits got onto the Throne for being famous and inspiring humans. Assassins were supposed to be unknown.

An Assassin that got onto the Throne was probably an incompetent Assassin for being too well known at their job.

So Rin carefully opened the wooden closet, ready to leap back if her instincts thought she was in danger for even a second.

But it wasn't an incompetent Assassin.

Instead, it was a small purple haired girl wrapped up in black and violently shivering while the golden-haired boy next to her was rocking back and forth as his teeth chattered on his thumbnail.

"Not the shots, not the shots, not the shots," Gilgamesh muttered to himself, not even noticing Rin.

"No needles, no needles, no needles," Lancer shivered incessantly, her eyes looking blank as she gazed into a distant beyond.

"What could have possibly traumatized a pair of Servants this badly?" Rin wondered as she put one hand on her hip and another on her chin.

* * *

Medusa Lily watched as Tohsaka's Archer brought out a new Noble Phantasm, the Nightingale Pledge.

Unfair. He could just pull out a new Noble Phantasm to fit the situation. It was unfair. But, he was doing it to protect Sakura. He was doing it to save Sakura. And that was her goal right now. To save her Master, a girl who was like her younger sister. And Medusa was used to being the younger sister instead of being the older one. She could see why her sisters liked being the older ones so much.

Then a pair of knives appeared in his hands and the boy stepped forward with an iron-cast expression that seemed familiar.

The other Heroic Spirits in there with him involuntarily stepped back as nightmares about a psychotic nurse flash through their minds.

Nightingale left… strong impressions on Heroic Spirits. Strong enough for them to remember her even counting the fact that remembering experiences from previous summonings was extremely difficult for the Servants. It was impossible to forget the woman who bluntly told the most powerful Servants that they were sick and needed to be healed and then promised to do it even if it killed them. And meant every word.

Shirou yelled "I will save you even if I have to kill you! Commencing Operation!"

And then he brought down the surgical knives into Sakura.

Medusa tensed and leapt forward to save her Master from the madman—

Only for a flash of memory, a fragment from a previous summoning—a Grand Order?— of a red-clad woman with white hair drenched in blood as she performed surgery.

Medusa blinked as she suddenly found herself pressing against the wall. Her eyes momentarily left the male nurse currently doing open chest surgery and moved towards Gilgamesh, across the room, who was also pressing against the wall. Their eyes met and conveyed similar horror and shock.

No, it couldn't be. Not _her_. The magus Servant couldn't be channeling _her._

Some things were so traumatizing that they affected Heroic Spirits even after the Servant body was undone.

EMIYA drew back from the incision he had cut into Sakura, British knife dispelling, and projected a large, empty needle into his empty gloved hand. A very large needle. As in, the length of Medusa's arm and the width of her head large.

Medusa found herself ramming into the door as she tried to flee, too terrified to even bother with the doorknob.

Why wouldn't the door open!?

The hinges were blasted off and the door fell back as Gilgamesh tried to bolt past her only for Medusa's A rank agility to beat out his C rank as they both fled out of the room and up the stairs.

Not the needles! She didn't want her check-upppppp!

Not even her sisters would do this to her!

* * *

Archer shifted himself into a higher plane of existence, the astralization ability that every properly summoned Heroic Spirit had. The Crest Worms were both physical and metaphysical. Part of the physical plane and outside of it. As such, if you wanted to remove the Crest Worms from a human, you needed to be interacting with them on the plane they were in. Just physically removing the Crest Worms wouldn't work because, as disgusting as they were, Crest Worms were Phantasmal Beasts.

Yet, Sakura was human and her existence had weight. As such, getting to the Crest Worms by only spiritual means would involve a great deal of spiritual damage to her. Enough to definitely kill her.

In comparison, a series of physical holes were much better than spiritual ones.

* * *

Zouken sat quietly, the core of his being wrapped around Sakura's heart as he felt the other worms he had left be removed from Sakura one by one. The two Servants had hunted down every Crest worm he had left, killing every Crest Worm in his mansion and grounds. But he had a few stashes outside of there. Some were going to be quickly wiped out by those Archers but a few might survive.

Only if he was careful. One of the Archers was Gilgamesh and Gilgamesh had high Clairvoyance, a high enough Clairvoyance that could allow him to see the future. When Gilgamesh had been content to only observe, Zouken could act freely. In contrast, now that Gilgamesh had moved against him, Zouken had no choice but to concede this war. Any action that he could do, Gilgamesh would see and know and then move to come down on him like the wrath of a king. And as the trio of Servants had proven at the estate, you couldn't win a war by being on the defensive.

Such a pity. Sakura was a rare windfall. Except, she had been just too strong to easily break and be molded by him. Unless he could overcome a setback like that, she would be useless as his Lesser Grail.

Once she was broken though…

Well, Servants were familiars. Powerful ones that only a fool would dismiss as only a familiar. Most of these Servants had already surpassed their Masters in both achievements, power, and knowledge. But at the end of the day, Servants, even Gilgamesh, were spiritual beings stuffed into a container linked to the Greater Grail.

A weakness, if you knew how to exploit it.

But he could make do with a lesser tool. His ambition could still be fulfilled in the next war. He would just need to salvage this war's Lesser Grail. Assuming that she didn't win it, which, by having Heracles as her Servant wasn't quite impossible assuming that Gilgamesh didn't intend on participating.

But if Zouken died in this War, he could not achieve his immortality and…

Curse the loss of so many Crest Worms. He couldn't remember what the original goal was. Only that he needed a perfect immortality to see it through.

* * *

Sakura died.

* * *

"Patient has died," Shirou noted down in the basement as he killed another Crest Worm that had not come out easily.

Pity. But the Nurse of Steel, or his pale imitation of it, was not to be deterred by mere things like a patient dying. He would save Sakura even if he had to kill her! Besides, he already knew what he had to do. Death would not stop him!

"Beginning resuscitation procedure!" he yelled, channeling the Berserk Nurse. "First, find the airway! Tilt the face sideways, and if there is anything inside the mouth, scoop it out with your fingers!"

Shirou did so, willingly sticking his hand down Sakura's mouth just to double check if something was there.

"Next," Shirou continued, reciting from memory what the amazing Nurse of Steel had said in her CPR demonstration. "Lift the chin up, pinch the nose, and blow in with all of your might for one second!"

Shirou eagerly put his mouth where his words were, planting his lips so hard on Sakura's that her head smacked against the back of the table despite being laid right upon it.

* * *

A sense of shock swept over Zouken. Surely, they had someone reliable and capable to heal the girl they had gone to such extents to save? Admittedly, Zouken had done his best to make it impossible. That was why he was now a Crest Worm wrapped around and a bit into her heart. Removing him would kill Sakura. He was sure of it.

But had they found him? Were they even aware of him controlling her heart? Zouken didn't think so. They had found several Crest Worms but not this one. Nothing had probed his 'granddaughter's' being well enough for this Crest Worm to show up. What kind of quack doctor had the Servants found? Sure, he had been removing his Crest Worms, not a simple feat considering that they were Phantasmal Beasts, but to kill his patient in the process? Who had given this guy a medical license?

Something was happening, Sakura's recently deceased corpse was having something done to it, around the head area in particular. Were they trying to analyze his Mysteries that he had implanted into the girl?

* * *

"And most importantly," Shirou recalled, putting both hands between Sakura's voluptuous breasts above where the heart was. "The chest compressions!"

* * *

Zouken finally remembered the CPR and first aid lessons he had encouraged Homurahara Academy to put onto their homeroom classes's schedule. It had been shot down (as he had expected) but the image had been good for his purposes in the community as PTA president.

Well, at least the Servants valued Sakura's life. Though CPR might not work, Zouken had come to a grudging and annoyed respect for Sakura' will. If she wanted to live, CPR might just bring her back. He hadn't thought that Sakura's self of self would last this long so maybe she would, through her own sheer stubbornness, refuse to die.

But didn't CPR include—

* * *

"Punch the chest one hundred times per minute to force the heart to restart!"

* * *

OW-OOH! OW-OOH! OW-OOH! OW-OOH! OW-OOH! OW-OOH! OW-OOH! OW-OOH! OW-OOH! OW-OOH!

A rapid and intense sense of crushing pressure landed straight on Sakura's heart and Zouken Matou.

OW-OOH! OW-OOH! OW-OOH! OW-OOH! OW-OOH! OW-OOH! OW-OOH! OW-OOH! OW-OOH! OW-OOH!

One half second, he was crushed, the next he was released only for the next half-second to feel like a boulder was landing on top of him, and the cycle repeated all over again!

OW-OOH! OW-OOH! OW-OOH! OW-OOH! OW-OOH! OW-OOH! OW-OOH! OW-OOH! OW-OOH! OW-OOH!

He went from one excruciating moment to the next moment of relief. Only the relief was stolen by the dreadful knowledge that the next moment would have the torturous force come right back again!

OW-OOH! OW-OOH! OW-OOH! OW-OOH! OW-OOH! OW-OOH! OW-OOH! OW-OOH! OW-OOH! OW-OOH!

* * *

Shirou's punches intensified, Sakura's dead body jerking about from his strength.

However, since Sakura wasn't a Servant like him or the unwilling sacrifice volunteered example that Nightingale had been demonstrating on, Shirou did moderate the force of his compressions.

He didn't want to punch through Sakura's ribcage after all.

* * *

OW-OOH! OW-OOH! OW-OOH! OW-OOH! OW-OOH! OW-OOH! OW-OOH! OW-OOH! OW-OOH! OW-OOH!

Zouken vowed that he would find whatever university had given this failure of a quack a medical degree and he would crush them and their student!

OW-OOH! OW-OOH! OW-OOH! OW-OOH! OW-OOH! OW-OOH! OW-OOH! OW-OOH! OW-OOH! OW-OOH!

If it was the last thing he did!

OW-OOH! OW-OOH! OW-OOH! OW-OOH! OW-OOH! OW-OOH! OW-OOH! OW-OOH! OW-OOH! OW-OOH!

* * *

Shirou had learned so much from Nightingale!

Such a wonderful and amazing nurse who had saved so many lives!

* * *

OW-OOH! OW-OOH! OW-OOH! OW-OOH! OW-OOH! OW-OOH! OW-OOH! OW-OOH! OW-OOH! OW-OOH!

And the doctor too!

OW-OOH! OW-OOH! OW-OOH! OW-OOH! OW-OOH! OW-OOH! OW-OOH! OW-OOH! OW-OOH! OW-OOH!

Would have a lifetime of misery!

OW-OOH! OW-OOH! OW-OOH! OW-OOH! OW-OOH! OW-OOH! OW-OOH! OW-OOH! OW-OOH! OW-OOH!

Even if it killed him!

OW-OOH! OW-OOH! OW-OOH! OW-OOH! OW-OOH! OW-OOH! OW-OOH! OW-OOH! OW-OOH! OW-OOH!

* * *

She was truly a Hero of Justice!

* * *

OW-OOH! OW-OOH! OW-OOH! OW-OOH! OW-OOH! OW-OOH! OW-OOH! OW-OOH! OW-OOH! OW-OOH!

* * *

And Sakura was alive again! Perfect!

Time for the next surgery!

* * *

_Oooohhhhh… I don't feel so good…_

* * *

**We interrupt your chapter to bring you this disclaimer from the author.**

**Yes, I do know that Nightingale's CPR technique is wrong. But that is what Nightingale taught Chloe in her interlude and it was too funny to not include. FGO interludes from July already paying off!**

**Remember, kids. Do not use Nightingale's techniques. You are not a Servant. Neither is the person you want to resuscitate. Call 911 or your emergency response number first and follow their instructions.**

**Or if you are trained in first aid, do what you have been trained to do, the five steps of check the scene, check the person, make certain the person is responsive and breathing, send someone to call 911, and follow instructions.**

**And remember, the Red Cross is available to train you in first aid. You can make a difference in someone's life.**

* * *

_Hours later…_

"You know, that was fun," Shirou hummed as he skipped out from the flight of stairs leading to the basement, a broad smile on his face from saving someone. "I should have been a surgeon."

"Is Sakura—" Rin asked immediately upon seeing Shirou.

"She's asleep, alive and healthy!" Shirou gave her a thumbs up. "It was touch and go for a bit there, especially when I had to cut out the one in her heart, but the Nurse whose experience I borrowed is an amazing Hero of Justice!"

Rin visibly relaxed.

Then she saw all the blood splattered across Shirou. It drenched his head, his hands, his arms, his chest, his clothes.

Basically, if blood could go there, it was there. It made Shirou look like he had just waded through a bloody massacre worthy of the Blood-Axe rather than surgery.

And you could just see when Rin processed what Shirou had said about Sakura's heart.

"AAAAAAAHHHHH!"

And hear it too.

* * *

"I'm a horrible sister," Rin shivered next to Sakura down in her workshop. She utterly refused to let go of Sakura's hand. If she focused, she could still detect a weak heartbeat in her veins.

Around her the workshop had been scrubbed clean. Sanitarily so.

Shirou had cleaned up after himself, removing all blood stains except for the ones on himself.

But Rin hadn't felt good until she had scrubbed _everything_ clean.

Until it would have put a hospital to shame.

Then she had sanitized it.

Every inch of this room.

"What was I thinking letting Shirou do surgery on you?" Rin raved, her hands locked into position around Sakura's. "He's a Heroic Spirit, I thought. He wouldn't suggest it if he couldn't do it, I thought. He might become the most famous surgeon in history and end up on the Throne of Heroes that way, I thought. HE'S A FREAKING HIGH SCHOOL STUDENT! OF COURSE, HE DOESN'T KNOW HOW TO DO SURGERY!"

Rin let the echo of her shout come back to her, bouncing off of the walls.

"But," Rin grudgingly acknowledged, looking over at Sakura. "You are alive now. And no longer under _that monster's_ hand. Putting a Crest Worm into your heart…"

Rin trailed off, shivering at how much danger Sakura had been in. And for how many years had that worm sat there, making sure that Sakura couldn't even go to anyone for help in fear that the worm would move and kill her from internal bleeding before she could finish asking for help?

Rin shivered at the thought of being trapped like that. For Sakura to be trapped like that for year after year.

_Father,_ Rin wondered. _What did the Matou offer that you got hoodwinked into not ensuring that Sakura would be safe from something like this?_

Rin didn't know. She had never looked for the record for the transaction between the Matou and the Tohsaka regarding Sakura as the Matou heir. But Sakura was free and safe now.

And most importantly, what Shirou hadn't been able to assure her of, was that she was healthy and definitely had enough blood.

After realizing how much of Sakura's blood was on Shirou, Rin had fallen down the stairs to get to Sakura. After seeing her pale face, pale from lack of blood, Rin had frantically dumped what little reserves she had left into blood synthesization for Sakura. She had even dug into a few gemstones that were optimized for healing magecraft.

Not that she had many gems capable of such sweeping healing left after rebuilding Shirou's heart.

But the pay-out from sacrificing that gem yesterday had turned out to be rather beneficial. Shirou had saved her sister. She wouldn't have been able to save Sakura without going to her father's murderer. Rin had nothing that could remove a Crest Worm from a heart and not kill the person. But Shirou had managed it. Rin hadn't had to go to Kotomine, who was proficient in spiritual surgery.

Rin didn't trust him to not kill her only sister in revenge for how she had treated him over the course of yesterday. Or he would kill Sakura just to see herself suffer, the sadist.

Shirou had done something for her that she would never be able to repay. Nothing, save for maybe marrying her Servant, would clear her debt to him. Besides, marrying him would render such a debt insignificant as you couldn't owe your family.

Rin carefully made sure that the thought of how much she owed him did not reach her Servant. She didn't want him to get a swelled head after all.

Rin eventually fell asleep down there, hand firmly holding onto Sakura's, not minding the lack of comfort.

After all, Sakura — no, her sister — was back home.

* * *

**Once again. Do NOT, I repeat, DO NOT follow the CPR procedure as told here. It is wrong. (Good luck telling Nightingale that.)**

**But I do think that Nightingale and Shirou would be an interesting take as a Master and Servant. Their goals would align quite nicely. They just want to save people. Nightingale fights against disease. Shirou wants to be a hero of justice. But had he ever considered a career as a surgeon? With the Origin of Swords, he would probably make an excellent surgeon. And Nightingale would encourage Shirou to do so simply because she wants more doctors to save more people. It would be a new path, a new way for Shirou to channel his dream, possibly one that even Archer would approve of.**

**But the Grail War would not let Berserker go free simply because she is working at a hospital...**


	5. 5: Sunday Morning, Up with the Tiger

Chapter 5: Sunday Morning, up with the Tiger

**The previous night…**

Shirou was looking down at the ground, cheeks red, to avoid staring more at the gorgeous white clad girl in armor who was in front of him. He had not been brought up to be rude. And he had no idea how to handle being cooed over by a girl his age.

The Saber on the other hand was busy trying to cool her cheeks from the embarrassment of spouting out how cute she found her Master.

The awkward silence lasted. For far too long, in both of their opinions.

Saber Lily took a deep breath and slapped her cheeks to work up her courage.

At the sound, Shirou looked up in startlement.

"Um," Saber Lily nearly lost her courage as her green eyes met his warm golden-brown ones. However, she was a knight (in training) so she had to press forward. "I am now Saber Lily! A knight in training. I don't know why I have changed to this younger form, but I hope to meet your expectations, Master!"

"Master!" The boy sputtered as he backed up, more red running to his cheeks as he waved his hands in front of him. "Hold on, I am not anyone's master!"

"But, you hold my Command Seals." Saber Lily blinked and shifted uncertainly. "And as you are the only magus around, that must mean you are my Master. Unless, did my transformatoin remove you as my Master?"

Saber Lily frowned, worried that she might have ruined her and her Master's chance at the Grail War because of the sudden change. Also, she couldn't sense any power coming from her Master. Was she a Rouge Servant? Did her change break their bond?

Bowing deeply, the Servant exclaimed. "I am so sorry, Master! I didn't think my transformation would do this."

"What transformation?" the red-head asked, getting more and more flustered as the girl bowed way too low to him. "Do you mean your clothes change? Your sword now being visible?"

"Yes, all of that is a sign of me becoming Lily," Saber apologized, not looking up. She wasn't a king yet so she should remain in her position of deference until her Master gave her permission to rise.

"I don't understand," her Master began, an air of bewilderment in his voice. "Who are you? Why are you here? What is a Command Seal? Why do you call yourself a knight? How did you change so suddenly? What is a Lily? How did you fight like that? Why was your sword invisible? Why did you two fight and try to kill each other? And why are you calling me Master?"

Lily backed up as the torrent of confused questions poured down on her.

"Um, err," she began, forgetting to remain bowed and looked up. Her Master, who had scrapes blood stained cloth, and a hole in his uniform over his heart, looked completely out of his depths. "I am your Servant and I was summoned by you for the Grail War."

"What war?" her Master asked after a moment of confusion.

"Um, Master," Lily began. "What do you know about the Fuyuki Grail War?"

"The what?"

"Oh," Saber deflated. Her Master hadn't summoned her on purpose. He hadn't sought her out. That was discouraging. What would he think of getting a weak version of Arturia Pendragon instead of whoever he really wanted?

"Um, sorry," the boy apologized. "I should invite you in. Oh, I forgot to introduce myself. My name is Shirou Emiya."

But maybe he summoned her through compatibility summon? Saber wondered as she glanced up and saw him holding out a hand for her to shake. She was going to be king but it seemed like it would be a little lonely to be king. Maybe someone who was like her would be able to help her prepare?

"Saber Lily," she reached out to his open hand, magically exchanging her metal gauntlet for a white glove. "But my True Name is Arturia Pendragon, the Princess Knight of Camelot."

Under the moonlight, palms together, the two teenagers stared each other in the eye.

Until they both blushed and look away, letting go like they were holding a hot coal in their hands instead of another person's hand.

Arturia felt her heart pump in her chest like a purring lion, not that she had seen a lion before. But she had heard about them and Kay had carved her a wooden lion. Stepping back to gain control of herself, Lily heard a sudden crunch over the sound of her own heart in her ears.

Both Master and Servant looked down to see an underfoot, now doubly broken piece of wood from the room that had been damaged by Lancer's assault.

Arturia blushed. She wasn't that heavy! Was she? She knew her figure wasn't the best but she wasn't heavy, right? Would she need to go on a diet? That was what these modern-day girls did when they were too heavy right?

But, exercise was good for weight loss too. Maybe she could increase her training?

* * *

After going inside and talking a bit more about the Grail War, Lily determined that it was more accurate to say her Master knew nothing. Not even about the Grail, what a Servant was, or what the reward was. From what the Grail had told her, there was supposed to be some mediator, but Shirou didn't even know who the Second Owner of Fuyuki was or where another magus was so they had no one to ask.

So Saber Lily found herself in the position of explaining what a Servant was, what the Grail War was, what the Grail was, how it was the fifth such Grail War, no she did not know when the previous wars had happened, and who she was.

"So, you are Arturia Pendragon," Shirou frowned as they both sat down at the table, returned to its proper place from where Shirou and Lancer had kicked it during their brief scuffle. "The same king Arthur in history. And you're a girl."

Arturia nodded to show he had gotten it right. Merlin always did when she answered one of his questions correctly. "Well, I'm not king yet. My older self, the one you originally summoned, was the king. The current 'me' is still in training. I've drawn Caliburn but I still need to prove myself to the kingdom."

"How?" Shirou's brow creased. "How can you prove yourself? Camelot is gone."

Arturia opened her mouth before closing it.

He was right. As a Heroic Spirit, she was outside of time. At this time period, there was no Camelot to prove herself as king to. It was destroyed and gone, buried in the past.

"Well," she stumbled. "I could train and get better and stronger-"

"But are you able to return to the past?" Shirou asked, still confused. "I mean, nobody can go back in time. Time flows forward and we must overcome the past to make the future better. So any training you do now would never make it to the past."

"W-Well," Saber Lily trailed off.

He had some good points. Points that she didn't know how to answer. How could she improve and train to be king of a kingdom that was gone?

"Maybe I can use the Grail to travel back?" she ventured randomly before shaking her head. "No, I still exist in the past and if there were two of me, it would divide the kingdom even further. I can't go to the past, it would just make things worse. Umm, what would I use the Grail for? Oooh, I wish Merlin was here."

Both of them fell silent, thinking.

"I don't have anything I would need the Grail for," Shirou offered up. "So do you really need to fight for it? It's bound to be safer to not need to fight."

"Umm, well, it just seems wrong to be summoned for a Grail War and not fight," Arturia Lily disagreed, her eyebrows flat as she frowned in worry. "But maybe I could think of something to use it for? Or maybe I could replace myself from the past?

"Maybe," she brightened up. "If I can train by fighting the other Servants, maybe I can improve. Get stronger and wiser before I become king. And then I can use that improvement to reduce the tragedies and cut down the feuds and wars and then abdicate to my mortal self and spend my days as the king's knight."

"That sounds really complex and unlikely to work," Shirou deadpanned. "I mean, two King Arthurs running around? Having to fight a small war in the future just to get to the past?"

"Well," Arturia blushed. "It's better than doing nothing, isn't it?"

Shirou was silent for a moment.

"That's true," he agreed. "If I do nothing, then people will die. Alright, I'll fight alongside you but we won't kill anyone and we'll try to get the fighting to stop."

"What?" Saber Lily blinked before waving her hands wildly. "But you're my Master! You can't fight against Servants!"

"Why not?" Shirou challenged. "If people want to fight, then someone needs to make sure they don't get out of hand and kill someone. And we don't know who the Overseer or Second Owner is so someone has to do it."

"But," Saber protested. "This is a Grail War. We Servants are supposed to kill each other and protect our Master."

"Why can't we just choose who gets the Grail?" Shirou asked. "Negotiate instead of kill each other. Shouldn't the Grail go to the person with the best wish?"

"The Grail doesn't work that way," Saber shook her head. "It needs the Servants to power it and only one of us can get the wish. That is just how it is set up."

"That's wrong," Shirou rejected. "Nothing is worth killing other people for."

"What about other people?" Saber asked. "The Saxons have been invading Briton for years and every time, they kill more and more of our people. They won't stop so we have to kill them to keep our own families alive. Should we let ourselves die so that other people can destroy our families?"

"There should be a way to peace," Shirou stubbornly insisted. "We just have to find it. A way for everyone to be happy."

Saber Lily hesitated. It was a very nice ideal and she wanted life to be that way. But Merlin had taught her that it couldn't be. The Saxons were determined to gain the kingdom for themselves. In addition, the current lords each had their own desires and ambitions that they wanted fulfilled. Vortigern was ruling in fear, terror and destruction for his own desires. And many of those people were so determined to get what they wanted that they would fight to the death to get it.

She was no different. She wanted a peaceful kingdom, an utopia. But the only way to get it was for her to be king and to fight everyone who opposed. Those who wanted to take from the kingdom.

"Well, what can I do?" Saber Lily asked. She was in training and you could learn from anyone. Maybe her Master, despite his ignorance of what he was in would know?

Shirou opened his mouth and paused.

Saber waited, hopeful sparks starting to die but not gone yet.

"I," Shirou began awkwardly. "I don't know. But there has to be a way to help everyone."

Saber Lily shook her head. "No, there isn't. Perhaps the previous king could have but he was murdered by my uncle so… yeah."

"Oh. My condolences." Shirou seemed awkward about it.

"It's sad, but I never met him," Saber Lily shrugged. "He died just after I was born and gave me away to be raised by Sir Ector while my uncle took over."

"Oh. Sounds like it was a bad time," Shirou frowned before asking hesitantly. "Was your uncle a bad king?"

"Very," Saber Lily replied instantly, remembering the stories that Father—Sir Ector, she wasn't supposed to call him Father now—tried to prevent her from hearing. The depravities that happened at court. The slaughters and massacres of villages and the armies not moving to help. Monsters roaming the land unopposed. The Lords fighting each other more than they fought the Saxons, who invaded and pillaged further and further every year.

Camelot was dying and people were losing hope. Villagers were terrified even though Sir Ector was a good knight and had never failed them before.

She couldn't let this continue. She had to save the kingdom and its people. And the only way was for her to be king.

A cold wind blew in from the broken walls and Shirou shivered.

"Oh," Arturia stood up before realizing she didn't have a cloak to offer. She didn't feel cold, couldn't as a Servant, but her Master obviously did. "Um, should we clean up the mess? I mean, as I arrived too late to save it, I should help put your home back together."

"You're a guest," her Master objected, also standing up. "I couldn't make you help clean this up."

"But I can't sit still while you work," Lily protested. "That's wrong and not worthy behavior of a knight. Besides, the work will go faster with two people."

Her Master's frown wavered and Lily smiled. "Besides, we can continue talking while we work."

"If you insist," Her Master's voice was full of reservations so Lily nodded with all her might. "Then I can't exactly turn you down, can I?"

"Thank you!" She beamed; her own smile unable to be hidden.

Her Master stared for a second. Long enough for Saber to wonder if there was something on her face. Then he shook himself and acted like nothing was wrong.

* * *

"So what is with the Saber Lily thing?" Shirou asked as he led to where he kept the spare materials and tools.

"It says what my specialty is," Arturia skipped alongside him, hands behind her back like she was going to a picnic instead of replacing a few doors. "and that I'm a Lily Servant. It basically means that I am at the start of my legend instead of at my strongest point. Like see?"

Her sword suddenly appeared at her waist in a beautifully ornate blue, gold, and red sheathe with a gem on it. She drew her sword with a flourish, the rasp of metal unmistakable.

"This is Caliburn. If I were older, I would have Excalibur. Or maybe Rhonomynia- Rhongyomynead- Gah!" Her audible pride at her sword turned into an exclaimed frustration. "Why am I mispronouncing it? Ron-go-my-knee-add!"

Shirou chuckled at her stumbling over the name.

"Hey, that's rude!" she complained, glaring at Shirou while red tinted her cheeks and ears. "Don't laugh at me for mispronouncing Rhongomyniad! Why don't you try saying it?"

"Ro-n-go-mi-ni-a-du," Shirou said easily.

"Bzzt! Wrong!" She exclaimed pointing one slim white gloved hand at Shirou. "See, you can't pronounce it on the first try either!"

Shirou grumbled as he looked away.

He couldn't look at her. Not with how cute she looked. Her smile from being so happy that she had beaten him in pronunciation was like a spear to the heart. Only a lot more pleasant and less painful.

* * *

As the sun rose, Shirou yawned as he worked on making breakfast, having just finished cleaning up the yard and replacing the door.

"Ah," Lily yawned too, one hand covering her mouth, from where she sat at the dining table.

He felt really tired and he guessed Arturia was tired too. He hadn't gotten any sleep since yesterday night, unless he counted the brief period of time after he was stabbed as sleep. But that felt more like dying than sleeping. Some people would say that dying was a rest but Shirou wasn't that overworked.

"Sorry," Lily apologized. "I could try my hand at making something if you want to sleep."

"It's fine," Shirou dismissed. "I like cooking and it is breakfast time anyway. Can't sleep too well on an empty stomach."

A growl came from behind him and Shirou turned his head to see Saber's face turn beat red.

"And it sounds like you would like some too," he continued. "Also, you don't know where the food is anyway."

"Well, I could try my hand at, uh," Arturia offered, her mind stumbling over what she could cook. "Well, I can roast a chicken over a campfire. Sometimes."

"Yeah, but you don't even know where the chicken is and we use stoves now instead of fire," Shirou pointed out. "Again, I like cooking and it would be rude of me to not give you any breakfast."

"It smells good," Lily sniffed at the air. "And it is bad to let food go to waste."

Her stomach agreed again, causing Shirou to hold back a small smirk. Already her stomach was turning traitor and joining his side.

The miso soup finished, Shirou brought it out to the table. After putting a bowl down in front of her, Shirou suddenly remembered that a lot of foreigners didn't like miso soup.

But before he could take it back in order to make something else she might enjoy, Saber was picking up her spoon, a look of eager anticipation on her face.

If she doesn't like it, Shirou figured. He could always make something else. Besides, it never hurt to try something new.

Taking a seat at the other end of the table, Shirou invoked "Itadakimasu."

"Itadakismasu," Saber repeated before putting her spoon into the soup and bringing it up to her mouth.

Shirou watched, trying to not be conspicuous about it. He failed but Saber was a little hungry so she could forgive a little rude table manner in favor of the food.

Saber Lily slowly brought the spoon full of fragrant soup to her mouth.

Shirou hoped she would like it.

The girl put it in her mouth.

Shirou held his breath.

And Saber Lily brightened up like the sun, nearly blinding Shirou from pure happiness. Shirou blinked, restoring his vision and heart, only to find Saber Lily scarfing down the soup like a happy and hungry dog given food.

"So," Shirou cleared his throat, feeling rather relived. "Is it any good?"

_I guess she likes it_.

"It's amazing!" she exclaimed, taking a moment to pause in her inhalation of the soup. "I've never had anything like this before, but it tastes so good!"

"Try varying bites with the rice," Shirou suggested. "The side-dishes also help vary the flavor."

Saber Lily picked up her chopsticks and with the ease of a food critic, used the unfamiliar tools to pluck out a large chunk of rice before plopping it in her mouth.

Again, her face flickered into happiness like a lightbulb, nearly blinding Shirou.

"SO GOOD!" the girl exclaimed, cupping her free hand to her cheek and closing her eyes in bliss.

Shirou swallowed as the radiant beauty and happiness of the teenager across from him struck him in the chest like a sledgehammer.

"I-I'm glad you like it," he manages before glancing away.

Stupid! Why is he acting so stupid!? She may be a very pretty girl who is obviously enjoying his food, but he doesn't have to act so stupid about it!

"Shirou, are you alright?" Saber Lily asked, tilting her head to the side and letting her blonde ponytail cascade over her shoulder. "You haven't been eating breakfast. Is there rationing going on? Or is this all the food you have? Oh it is, isn't it! I'm sorry for eating so much! You can have the rest! Servants don't need to eat, so you should have it! I'll be fine without it so you need to eat, Master! Don't hold back on my account. Eat your fill please!"

Shirou found his heart rate rising again as the cute gesture of the lovely woman alone with him in the dining room. He really needed sleep if he was letting this much affect him. She wouldn't appreciate it if he continued this train of thought.

"No, it's fine," Shirou interrupted Saber Lily's babbling as she dropped her chopsticks and shoved her food towards him. "We have plenty of food. You don't need to restrain yourself."

Arturia paused at that.

"Well," her hands stopped gripping the table as if she were about to push herself away from it and started drifting back to the bowl and dishes she had pushed towards Shirou. "If it isn't a problem…"

She slowly started dragging the dishes back towards her.

"It's fine," Shirou assured her. "If you want more, I can always make more."

"Oh," she said before straightening up and smiling a very happy smile at him. "I appreciate your generosity, Master!"

Shirou missed how she fell back to 'Master' as he nearly had a heart attack from how heart-stoppingly beautiful her smile was.

But he shook his head and regained himself.

He glanced down at the table, only to see the amount of rice and side-dishes rather low.

He probably should eat some before there was nothing left.

* * *

After the Master and Servant pair finished eating, leaving behind a table that looked like a swarm of locusts had devoured everything edible on it.

"I guess you liked the miso," Shirou commented as he came over to Arturia's side to start collecting the dishes to put in the sink.

"It was fantastic!" Lily's eyes sparkled before she clasped Shirou's free hand between both of her own, ungloved hands. "I want to eat your miso soup every day!"

Shirou's face instantly erupted to a shade of red darker than his hair at the implied traditional Japanese proposal.

"WHAAAT!" came a screech from the doorway as a brown-haired Tiger with flames rising behind her slammed the door open before pointing at the startled blonde teenager. "WHY ARE YOU TAKING MY BREAKFAST!? WHO ARE YOU!? AND WHY ARE YOU TAKING MY COOK!?"

"Why do I feel that the first is more important to you, Taiga?" Shirou complained, ears still red.

* * *

**Happy Valentine's Day! Just for that, you can have Arturia's accidental proposal to Shirou.**


	6. Chapter 6: Tiger vs Lion Kitty Cat

**Honestly, I didn't expect to write this. But as I wrote the next chapter, I thought, you know, I don't have to just allude to Taiga and Saber Lily's first interactions. I can write it instead and have fun there!**

**So, yeah, this is a short fluff chapter. That said, I had quite a bit of fun with it so it serves my purposes. Also, this chapter was written in honor of the Saber Wars event in NA FGO.**

Chapter 6: Tiger vs Lion Kitty Cat

"Ah, hello," Saber Lily stood up to greet Shirou's guest with a respectful bow. Judging by her Master's response to the intruder, she was expected. Though the shade of red on his face was a surprise and slightly worrying. Had she messed up somehow? "I am Saber Lily and I am here to visit and learn. Shirou was kind enough to make breakfast for both of us. Nice to meet you!"

"Nice to meet you too," Taiga greeted with a return bow. "But why are you taking my 5-star breakfast and my cook!"

"That was a 5-star breakfast?" Surprise lanced through her heart and head as she wheeled around to face Shirou. "Thank you very much, Mas-Shirou!"

She wasn't supposed to call him Master, Lily remembered. Shirou wanted her to call him by his name.

"No, it was pretty slap-dash," Shirou scratched his head. "Not my best work. Nowhere close to 5-star or even average."

"Mast-" Taiga's eyes narrowed. "What were you going to call Shirou?"

"Master," Lily honestly replied. Shirou had just smacked his own face. Why did he do that?

"I thought it was 'Mister', not 'Master' nowadays," Taiga folded her arms and glared at Shirou. "Unless…Shirou!"

"What?" Shirou looked wary like he was walking into a trap but had to go anyway.

"Did you and she get up into kinky roleplaying sex with bondage, dominance, sadism, masochism, and elements?" Taiga pointed asked.

"What?" Lily was unsure if it was Shirou or her who yelled that or who was blushing harder. "What? No! We didn't!"

"And the marriage proposal?" Taiga maliciously stalked forward; her hands held like claws.

"What marriage proposal?" Saber asked, her blush not going down.

"She just liked the miso!" Shirou shouted suddenly.

What did miso have to do with marriage? Was it associated with marriage? But the Grail told her that miso soup was a standard Japanese breakfast.

"And who was the miso for?" If Taiga was a cat, her tail would be bushy and puffed up, as her anger poured out of her.

"For both of us," Shirou answered.

"What about _my_ breakfast!" Taiga whined.

"You don't come to eat on Sunday unless it is a special occasion," Shirou put up both of his hands. "I didn't even know you were coming."

"But I was looking forward to my 5-star buffet breakfast with all of my favorites!" Was she crying? She had tears welling up in her eyes. Real tears.

But Lily guessed that if she arrived too late only to completely miss one of Shirou's breakfasts, she might be sad too. Especially if his usual breakfast was even better! But still, to the point of crying?

"What do think I am, a cook show host?" Shirou sarcastically asked. "I'm not that good."

"And she ate it all!" Taiga's arm shot out, pointing at Saber. "Where's my breakfast!"

"At your home," Shirou answered.

"Shirou!" Taiga roared and leaped at him.

"No!" Saber blurred to interpose herself and protect her Master, arms outstretched. This Taiga seemed really angry.

Taiga's weight and body crashed into Lily, knocking them both down into the table. Tumbling over their sides, the two rolled across the table, chopsticks clattering as they were displaced, until the pair rolled off the edge of the table, away from Shirou.

"Get out and give me back my breakfast!" the hungry Taiga bellowed from atop Saber.

"It's gone and not your breakfast!" Saber denied.

"And you leave!" Taiga commanded as she broke away from the pile on the ground.

"I refuse!" Saber crossed her arms as she sat up. "I was helping out all night and I have an obligation!"

"All night!" Taiga wailed.

"Well, more of I arrived half-way through the night and helped Shirou." Saber defended her actions. "I refuse to leave as it would leave my duty unfulfilled!"

"Shirou, how could you let a girl sleep over!" Taiga wheeled on Shirou. "What would Kiritsugu say if he knew about this?"

Kiritsugu, Kiritsugu, it sounded familiar like someone her older self would know.

"He'd be happy," Shirou folded his arms and nodded after a moment of thought with his eyes closed. "He'd say something about a man's resourcefulness."

"Ugh," Taiga flinched. "You're, you're right. Kiritsugu was really indulgent with girls. But why did you have to inherit it, you dense idiot!"

"Says the one who benefitted the most from it," Shirou muttered loudly. Saber Lily guessed it was supposed to be said under his breath though. Kind of rude to call it out like that. But maybe it was ruder to be the one exploiting it?

"I don't know who you are talking about," Lily began, folding her own arms and putting aside the question of propriety in Japan. "But I will not leave my post under any condition! I will defend Shirou, his home, and his breakfast!"

"I can tell where the priorities of you two are." Shirou threw in.

"He doesn't need a defender, he has me!" Taiga shot back.

"Then more people won't hurt." Saber Lily was full of conviction, the emotion firming up her heart.

"But that will mean I will have to share with more people!" Taiga looked grief-stricken.

"Sharing is good for you, Taiga," Shirou encouraged.

"But that means less for me!"

"There must be sacrifices made for the greater good," Lily nodded as she closed her eyes in satisfaction at her point.

"But I don't want to make a sacrifice! And if there are more guards on the food, then there will be less food to pay the guards! We'll have to fight over it!" Taiga proposed as she slapped her dress's pocket and frowned at nothing being there. "In the dojo!"

"I accept your duel." Saber Lily proudly accepted. "The time is when we both get there!"

"As the owner of the house, shouldn't I get a say in this?" Shirou wondered.

"No." Came the reply.

"I'm defending your right to say it, Master!" Lily supported even as she chased after Taiga.

"But not enough to actually listen to it." Shirou concluded before sighing and resuming his cleanup of the breakfast table. Which was now a bigger mess than before he had started cleaning up breakfast.

Saber Lily was too focused on the upcoming duel to listen to a now distant Shirou. She was excited at the opportunity to face off against an Eastern swordsman. Taiga was obviously a swordswoman as she moved like one!

Arriving quickly, the two hungry young women (Hey, it's Taiga, do you want me to get hurt too—Shutting up) raced for the wooden practice swords, Taiga arriving first because she knew where they were.

The older woman (hey, stop that! Bad kitty! Stop biting me, stop biting me! Fine!) young woman grabbed one before pausing and grabbing a second that was off to the side.

"Here!" She yelled as she threw the second high into the air even as she struck down at Lily's unguarded head.

Lily deftly dodged the strike and caught the flung blade. Side-stepping a second fast-as-the-wind blow, Lily gripped the received blade and faced her opponent.

"Ah!" Taiga complained even as she lashed out with an overhead strike. "You dodged my early strike."

"I know I said the duel would begin when we both arrived," Saber Lily dodged consecutive blows as she hefted the blade and tried to get a good grasp on its dimensions and weight. Lily frowned as the sword seemed off… workable but off. "But striking without a formal announcement is unchivalrous!"

"Losers weep!" Taiga denied as she lashed out. This time Lily set her blade to block. "And victors eat!"

Lily's sword smacked into Taiga's in a perfect parry-

-and folded in half, letting the other sword sweep in and smack Saber in the white dress covered torso.

"Chest!" Taiga yelled before raising her sword in triumph. "My victory!"

"What!" Lily stared at her foam sword before her head snapped to Taiga, the fire of righteous indignation burning in her heart. "That-That's cheating! Giving me a faulty sword like this!"

"It is still my victory!" Taiga taunted proudly, not caring about how dirty her victory was. "Loser has to leave."

"Rematch!" Saber disgustedly threw the toy sword to the ground. "I demand a rematch!"

"I will still win," Taiga tapped her own body with the tip of her sword smugly. "No difference."

"With a proper practice sword, I would defeat you!" Saber Lily insisted. She would defeat this cheater! She would bet Taiga isn't even a real swordsman!

"The barking of sore losers is nothing to a winner," Taiga smiled.

"I'm not a sore loser and you aren't even a true swordsman!" Saber denied.

"Oi!" Taiga's eyes narrowed. "I am a black belt. I'm a better swordsman than you'll ever be."

"Then prove it." Lily challenged as she darted over to where Taiga had pulled her real wooden sword. Pulling a real wooden sword out, Lily spun around to meet Taiga's eyes. "Two out of three!"

She would humiliate this pretender! She would beat her twice for inflicting such a low-honor defeat upon her! Only big brother Kay could do that! And she disliked it when he did it. She would give twice the bitter ashes of defeat unto this scoundrel!

A few quick moves and the arrogant Taiga was watching her own sword fly out of her hands.

"My win." Saber couldn't hold back the smile at her just and righteous victory over the forces of dishonor.

"Best of three!" Taiga yelled as she jumped up and grabbed her sword again.

"Of course!" Lily smiled like a lion would. "Dirty cheaters have to suffer twice what they inflict."

* * *

"Best of five!"

* * *

"Hah! I won this time!"

"That's cheating too!"

"Then prove it!"

"I will!"

* * *

"Best of seven! And this time you won't be able to cheat by kicking like that!"

* * *

"Best of nine!"

* * *

"Hah! That's my fifth victory! Now you have to leave."

"That was a draw and you know it!"

* * *

"Best of seventeen!" Taiga panted as she bent down to pick up her sword. How was this swordswoman not tired while she was panting? Taiga had used every trick and technique she knew and this Saber was just getting better at not falling for them. Now it was matches of pure skill! And while Taiga was better, Lily was almost as good! Ignore the fact that Lily's score was higher!

"Um," Shirou's voice interrupted, breaking into the haze of a good fight. "I was just going to tell you that lunch is ready."

"Really?" Lily's face lit up as she turned to face Taiga's boy.

A chance! Taiga lashed out, striking for the unguarded back.

Lily instantly spun, not back around but to the side, body curving to face Taiga even as her sword came up to block.

But Taiga had built up too much momentum. The swords met with a thunderous clash. That was soon followed by several more rapid strikes as Taiga seized upon the advantageous momentum of her moves.

"The food is getting cold." Shirou reminded as the two started dueling again, causing the two to stop. Food or swordsmanship? Swordsmanship or food? To be hungry? Or not to be a winner? That is the question. Whether it is nobler in the mind to suffer-

Taiga's stomach let out a growl. Odd, usually her stomach grumbling didn't have an echo like that.

Shirou's raised eyebrow was pointed at Saber whose cheeks turned slightly red.

Oh. Oooh.

"We'll take this to the dining room!" Taiga declared, seeing a way to switch the arena into one she was more confident in. No one would beat her speed in eating!

"Messiest eater loses," Shirou inserted.

"The one to eat more wins!" Taiga insisted.

"I'll be the first to the table!" Saber declared, running to the rack and putting away her current sword. They had had to replace a few as the two high-level swordmasters had fought with all of Taiga's might.

"I will!" Taiga insisted as she started running. Tired? Who was? Not her!

* * *

"Okay, you can stay," Taiga admitted as she laid back, stomach now groaning from being too full. "No one who fights like you and appreciates good food like that can possibly be evil."

"You too," Saber nodded in approval. "Though, your dirty tricks should be removed from your arsenal. A true swordmaster doesn't need them!"

"Hey!" Taiga protested. "I practiced those! They are as much a technique as any you used. Plus, you're too naïve and gullible."

"Am not!" Lily huffed.

Shirou yawned as he worked to clean up the kitchen as the two squabbled. It had been a long day. When did he last sleep again? Was it last night? Or the night before? And going through most of his food storage to keep the two fed required that he cook fast. At least he had been able to eat a little while cooking after realizing that anything he left on the table, even the portions on his plate, would just go down one of two ravenous maws. But they would leave the kitchen alone so any food he put onto his plate out here would stay here.

Still was a bit hungry though.

Things quieted down and Shirou glanced over his shoulder. Taiga was sleeping, her bulging stomach telling why she was out like a light. Exhaustion and digestion. Opposite her, Saber Lily was resting her eyes, looking warm and comfortable as she relaxed. And unmentionably cute, in Shirou's opinion.

Shirou yawned again. After finishing these dishes, he should probably get some sleep too. He needed it after such a trying night and day.


End file.
